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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26763706">Threefold</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sprinkledeath/pseuds/Sprinkledeath'>Sprinkledeath</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Extreme angst, M/M, canon typical bastards, light spoilers for end of season 4, slight nsfw, sometimes yearning is pretty fun and cool</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 02:49:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>22,255</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26763706</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sprinkledeath/pseuds/Sprinkledeath</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter Lukas breaks three rules.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>72</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. You Keep Your Cards to Your Chest</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>South Shields Harbor, England - 1996</b>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The air is leaden, clouds soon to burst, storefronts shuttered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The captain walks alone, eyes trained past the gray and red buildings to the looming silhouette of his ship in the distance.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Once he reaches the North dock, he stops to pull a cigar from his breast pocket, which he holds lightly between two calloused knuckles, dragging unhurried plumes of smoke from it. He sweeps icy eyes over the harbor with a pleased sigh.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The mouth of the Tyne is largely empty today, the few personal watercraft dotting its gray waters looking like bathtub toys beside the bulk of the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span>. His crew is moving unseen amidst the multicolored cargo crates aboard, he knows, and any minute now Tadeas will give him the signal. Then, nothing but ocean and sky for four weeks. He takes a deep pull from his cigar, savoring the anticipation of their departure.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then, a harsh note breaks his blissful silence. He thinks for a moment it is the boatswain’s call he’s left with his first mate, but then the noise repeats, and it’s closer than it should be. A phone, he realizes, and he turns to stare back down the empty street he’d just come down. There’s a blue dome top phone box pressed against the brick wall to his left, and the phone is ringing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The captain is superstitious – given his line of work, he’d be stupid not to be. He knows better than to be curious, and there’s no one he’d want to talk to.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knows better, but he is still curious.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He closes the distance quickly, snatches the phone off of its cradle, and holds it silently to his stubbled cheek.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Peter,” says the voice of his uncle, Nathaniel, characteristically devoid of warmth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter leans against one of the frail silver arms of the phone box and mouths his cigar in wait. Around him, the pavement is speckling darkly with raindrops. Soon he hears it drumming the dome above him, sliding down the metal poles and streaming past his boots.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mr. Bouchard has been calling Moorland House incessantly for you,” says Nathaniel, accusatory.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Who?” asks Peter around his cigar, pocketing his hands.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t play oblivious,” snaps Nathaniel, and then after a few moments of silence he sighs, put-upon. “We make exceptions, Peter. The Magnus Institute does not go to voicemail. You’ll have to keep the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span> at port for now.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What on earth are you talking about?” Peter can’t manage to hide his frustration. For a man so down-to-business, Nathaniel is so rarely direct.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“…You really have no idea.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That drops a stone in Peter’s stomach.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“James Wright is dead. Elias Bouchard is his replacement, and he’s asking after you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dead.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Peter had never known exactly what afflicted James Wright – a respiratory condition, maybe, or dementia? Whatever it was had cast a vile hue over every facet of the man. Peter thinks hard about James, trying to remember what he had been like before the end, before Peter had drawn back. Round face turned gaunt, copper eyes bright with fear. It swallowed the rest of him and now</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dead.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter unclamps his teeth from around his tongue, mechanically. The taste of copper brings him back to the present.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You better not have hung up,” comes Nathaniel’s voice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You deal with that Institute finance drabble,” says Peter in rising panic. He presses himself further into the phone box; the rain is darkening the olive cuffs of his trousers. “Th-this isn’t fair. It isn’t my job.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span> “Hm. You were so willing to visit James Wright for pleasure. Perhaps it’s overdue that you shoulder your share of business meetings.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No Lukas does more than I,” says Peter, trying for anger but falling pathetically short. “I keep our patron fat. I shoulder my share. Damn it, Nathaniel –”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span> You’ve got a meeting with the Institute in two days. Don’t avoid it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This isn’t fair,” repeats Peter weakly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’ll live.” Nathaniel hangs up.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter throws his cigar down, crushes it to pulp under the treads of his boot, and pushes out into the rain, heading toward the harbor. Tadeas Dahl is waiting dutifully beside the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span>, long black hair matted with rain. Noticing the heavy air about his captain, he shouts instructions to the crew, who scuttle out of sight and get to work pulling anchor. Tadeas, bless the man, doesn’t ask Peter any questions, but he does follow him toward his cabin, awaiting instruction.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do we have supplies to extend to five weeks at sea?” asks Peter, blinking the raindrops from his eyes, and Tadeas nods.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What is Nathaniel going to do, come give him a talking-to in person? Hardly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>…</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>It has taken the larger part of a decade to consolidate his crew to the bare essentials. Now, the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span> is a well-oiled machine – not that it’s too difficult a ship to operate, considering the cargo never moves.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There are three new finds aboard on this outing: Two are drunks from the local cannery, strapped for cash. The third seems at a glance to be an academic sort, tweed-clad and scribbling down notes as he watches the crew meander about. Peter wonders vaguely where and why Tadeas found this one – for entertainment, perhaps. The nosy sorts always satisfy his patron greatly, and Peter figures it will ease (or at least temporarily distract from) his malaise to cast this would-be investigator into the Lonely. Perhaps all three of the newcomers, this time, if the fog will take them. If not, tossing them to the sea the old-fashioned way will give Peter a satisfying distraction.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Tadeas brings Peter his dinner, Peter instructs him to keep the newcomers out of his way until the time is right. Then he makes his way to the deck, and combs his gaze across the coldly glittering waves.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He is no stranger to loss. Why would this be any different?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Again, he tries to conjure James’s face and </span>
  <em>
    <span>twitching mouth, bright eyes, nervously tapping hands, drawing a glass of bourbon to thin-pressed lips, Peter wants to call him a cab but he can’t stomach it, why can’t the man have his breakdown in privacy, like the rest of us, but now James lifts his head to scan the room, and Peter thinks he hears his name whimpered out to him, thankfully the fog finds him before those fearful eyes can, and</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And doesn’t Peter do his share? No Lukas is so prolific in feeding their patron as him, and he is still young. The </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra </span>
  </em>
  <span>is his penitence. Nathaniel pays his dues in those intimate business meetings and cluttered fundraisers and artifact auctions that make any decent Lukas sweat. Nathaniel pays the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra’s </span>
  </em>
  <span>way, but no one else can steer her like Peter can. The </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra </span>
  </em>
  <span>is his, the ocean is his, the soft gray throat of the world is his. There is nothing for him on land, he’s made sure of that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>You were so willing to visit James Wright for pleasure.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Pleasure? Peter met James at a funeral. James stood out comically, stuffed into a pine green button-up and mint pantsuit, looking more affected by the death than any of the gray-eyed mourners around him. It burned when he shook Peter’s hand, and he said Peter’s name as many times as he could, like he was savoring the taste. James was probably twice his age, then, probably handsome, probably already deciding what he could get out of Peter besides his money. Nathaniel, in a rare show of solicitude, warned Peter that when you tangle with the Head of the Institute, three rules: you keep your cards to your chest, you don’t ever take something the Eye wants, and you’re better off being over-generous with cash than let anything else be taken from you. Peter didn’t listen, of course. He managed to avoid stepping foot in the Magnus Institute in the 3 or 4 or 8 years since he met James Wright but he met the man many times, and while pleasure isn’t the word he’d use for it, Peter</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter feels eyes on him, and he swivels around to see he is not alone on deck.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The academic stowaway approaches him slowly, and Peter hears him speak as if from far away. “Are you alright, Captain?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He claps a hand on the academic’s shoulder, who looks up into his eyes and freezes, mouth agape. Peter twists his wrist, and the man goes tumbling to the deck with a sharp outcry. Peter hauls him up again by his ugly tweed collar and stares somewhere past him, out to the water where fog begins to gather. As the body writhes between his hands, noises getting louder and louder in his ears, Peter takes great satisfaction in casting it up and out. The screams stop. There is no splash of body hitting water. The fog swells up around him, sweet and cold and possessive, and there is total silence.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s sloppy work, but the result is much the same. Peter opens his mouth to taste the mist, needle-like on his bitten tongue.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Men die alone, out of mind and out of the world,</span>
  </em>
  <span> thinks Peter, and he feels a little better now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>…</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>As promised, Tadeas makes arrangements for five weeks, and largely runs the ship on Peter’s behalf as Peter moves listlessly between cabin, bridge, and deck, staying out until the icy air numbs him through, and  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>James and Peter had an understanding, that was certain. Meetings were impersonal, brief, and always on neutral ground. Sometimes Fairchild-hosted, on wind-swept verandas. Sometimes in some benefactor’s manor thick with cobwebs, or dimly lit. Sometimes a random restaurant (James liked to foot the bill, though his wallet was so stuffed with Lukas money that it hardly mattered). James talked. Peter listened or pretended to listen. While Peter rarely laughed at James’s jokes or responded to his flirtations, he did not loathe his company, which really did make James the exception.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>They were not close, though. Of course they weren’t.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Two weeks into their voyage, and one of the drunks presses his luck, trying to start up a shanty to lift the mood on deck. This time, Peter does it properly, sending the crew out on the lifeboat and drinking in the fear of the man who crumples away from him on the empty deck of the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span>. This one lasts not even a week in the fogs of the Forsaken before throwing himself over, into the equally unforgiving sea. Peter does not look, though maybe he wants to.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tadeas brings his crew, all shaking with relief, back aboard.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter drags his fingers through the dissipating fog of the Lonely and looks up at the cruelly winking stars, reveling in the silence as his men hastily retreat below deck. The </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span> sits perfectly still between cold water and cold sky.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>James was gracious, even warm towards Peter. And he was certainly interested in Peter. Even as vacant as Peter was, he was not unaware that James was charismatic and charming. He indulged James probably more than he should have.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>But they were not close, because Peter was who he was.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I am who I am,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Peter thinks, steepling his fingers over the railing of the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and it feels like a confession.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>…</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>They have one week left at sea. The crew’s restlessness is palpable – it isn’t common that Peter claims more than one victim per voyage, so now it’s all up in the air for any of them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Even Peter is growing tired of the heavy tension. He knows his crew is loyal, and that they will endure his whims in fervent silence. It is extra work to replace them, though, and he should be careful moving forward – what will his family do when he comes ashore?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The final remaining newcomer aboard is long-since sober. He has settled into the quiet and anxious routine of his shipmates, a distinct terror coming off him in waves. Peter hasn’t seen him up close - the man has the sense at least to keep his distance.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Until he doesn’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunset is bleeding over the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and Peter is below-deck, staring ahead and thinking of nothing, when his first mate enters.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tadeas sets Peter’s dinner on the nearest surface, expression guarded in the dim light of the cabin. He opens his mouth, closes it, turns to leave, then pivots back and speaks at last, with eyes averted.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Isaias – er, the drunkard – is asking for the Captain.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Is he?” asks Peter tiredly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes sir. I advised he rethink. But he’s impatient. Soon he’ll come knocking himself.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thank you for the warning,” says Peter, dismissing Tadeas with a wave. “I’ll handle it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If he stays in his cabin for the next week, it doesn’t have to be an issue. Maybe the events of the voyage will drive this Isaias into the Lonely in due time anyway. There’s no reason to intervene.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Peter has already made up his mind. He finishes his dinner and goes out to watch the sunset on the flying bridge, where he can survey all parts of the deck and be viewed from any part of it as well. The white disk of sun has all but dissolved into the black line of the horizon when he senses someone entering the narrow bridge behind him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The man, Isaias, certainly has the look of a newly sober drunkard. He hangs in the doorway, blinking at Peter like he might be a mirage. He is painted red in the dying light.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span> “Artemis,” says Isaias, “My brother, Artemis, who came aboard with me.” He moves toward Peter with pleading, bruised eyes, hands lifting upward, breath billowing between them. “What did you do? Tell me what you did to my brother.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He’s gone,” says Peter, taking a step back in disgust. “Leave it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then…whatever you did…just take me there…I just want to be with him. Even death, Captain, however, wherever-!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I won’t say it again,” says Peter, voice low.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Isaias lunges without warning, and rains blows on Peter’s ribs and stomach, grabbing and hitting with no clear aim. Peter registers through his shock that the man is crying as he screams.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Inhuman bastard! I’ll be with him! Damn you, I will!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The disgust bubbles over into horror.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter contains Isaias easily between his big hands and swings him around toward the railing of the bridge. The man’s thighs catch the top of it and just barely stop him from going over, and he shrieks and buries his nails under Peter’s coat, through the fleece of his jumper and into the soft flesh of his inner wrists, feet still thudding into Peter’s body wherever they can reach.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It would take so little to push him over, and bring peace.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter imagines the man coming apart on the deck of the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span> below for all to witness, dark blood spilling like oil.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He thinks for a moment that the satisfaction of silence is worth it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then Tadeas’s voice comes from behind them, refocusing him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Captain?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There is no accusation or fear in Tadeas’s voice. Peter could push this man to his death and Tadeas wouldn’t question him – he would simply assign the task of cleanup, and maybe Peter would give him and all the men bonuses for enduring an especially long voyage, and that would be the end of it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But the moment is past. The red has drained from the sky. Peter can barely feel the blows still landing on his abdomen.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He tilts the man to the side just enough so his legs can slip down and find footing again. Instantly, Isaias springs away from him like a cornered animal.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s a moment of tense silence broken only by their heavy breathing, and then Isaias darts toward the railing again with a pained, echoing cry.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Tadeas gets to him first, grabbing Isaias by the collar and belt and dragging him back off the bridge and down toward the main deck. The sound of sobbing breaths lingers long after they’re gone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter sinks onto his elbows on the railing with a soft wince, the feeling returning to his body and with it a heavy fatigue. He presses his palms to his eyes, rakes his hands through his hair.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>There was Nathaniel, counting rules on his fingers. There was James, standing behind Peter on a windless night, raking fingers through Peter’s early-graying hair, pressing the nearly-imperceptible freckles at his throat. Peter, forgetting himself, moaned out “You’re mine” and James laughed. “Does that make you mine?”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>…</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>The </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span>, one or five weeks overdue, is coming ashore in Saltburn-by-the-Sea, and Peter is no closer to peace.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Saltburn is hardly a town – a railroad, inn, and fishermen’s lodgings all bracketed in by woodland and steep cliff, curving perfectly east-west along the sea.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tadeas Dahl gives him a look that says </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’ll sort things out here</span>
  </em>
  <span> and Peter nods, leaves the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span> behind him to wander the dockside before eventually finding his way onto empty beach. The bruises along his body blossom green and yellow after a week of recuperation; he decides to cut his walk short. He scopes out the entrance for the famous cliff lift that will take him uphill into town, a humble cluster of gray-white buildings just out of view, where he can find a place to gather his thoughts. His footsteps echo loudly through the empty lift station. When the row of pay phones to his side all light up in cacophony, one by one with his passing steps, Peter pretends not to notice. He can still hear them ringing as the lift brings him up away from the seafront.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter’s feet take him to the Ship Inn, where he sits drinking passionfruit gin and looking out at the long gray stretch of the pier (empty, off-season) down below.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter thinks he can stay here for a few nights, while he decides his next step. There are a few other patrons in the old inn, but they give him space.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then, suddenly, there is Mikaele Salesa, sitting down beside him with a drink in each hand. Broadly built, dark skin further sun-baked, with the look of a proper seaman about him and dark, alert eyes, Mikaele looks the same every time Peter encounters him. Though this time, there’s a little less confidence to his movements, and he’s smiling. He must want something.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Captain Lukas,” says Mikaele. He pushes one of the drinks over in front of Peter’s chest. “What brings you to a tourist trap like Saltburn-by-the’? Going to give surfing a try?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m avoiding someone. Multiple someones, I guess,” admits Peter. In another life, he would really like Mikaele – chiefly because Mikaele doesn’t care in the slightest if he’s liked or not.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You? Avoiding someone? My, my.” Mikaele waves his glass, and Peter relents, clinking their glasses together briefly before throwing his back in one gulp, followed by a heavy exhale.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ah. That says it all, big man. Another drink on me, then.” Mikaele is already standing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can practically hear the coins jingling in your pocket, Mikaele. Have you taken something you shouldn’t have? I’m not going to stow you away again. We’re too old for that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Too old, harrumph. In our business, we are spring chickens, you and I,” says Mikaele, winking over his shoulder at Peter as he trots back over to the bar. Once he returns with two more drinks and they’ve touched glasses and drained them, he wipes his mouth with a thumb and gives his best down-to-business face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, I don’t need your help but I am asking that you hear me out, Captain.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hm,” says Peter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“James Wright is dead,” Mikaele says. Testing the waters.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” says Peter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mikaele seems to be waiting for Peter to elaborate; when he doesn’t, the man exhales through his nose in a bemused sort of way. “The new Head of Institute…he is, ah…well, I don’t like him at all. He is a weasel in a green suit.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s a given, for a Head of the Magnus Institute,” says Peter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ah, well, I did not know Wright very well, but Bouchard clearly knows what he wants and from who. He is not mincing words.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Alright, Mikaele. What did the bastard give you to get you out here?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mikaele gives him a wince that is probably meant to be apologetic. “Not sure I should have taken that money, but it was no small amount. He essentially bought me out for the rest of the year. Maybe for the rest of the decade. He said he is trying to set up his connections early. And my, does he want to meet you badly.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No wonder Mikaele’s nerves are a little closer to the surface today.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’ve essentially been paid with Lukas money to track down a Lukas who doesn’t want to be found. I expect better business sense from you, Mikaele.” And truth be told, Peter’s a little wounded. Mikaele is a fence but he isn’t the sell-out type.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I am building a business all on my own,” says Mikaele, clapping a hand to his own chest. “Not all of us have family funding to lean back on.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well you have mine, now, it seems,” replies Peter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Let me buy you another drink then,” says Mikaele, but Peter stops him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m losing my patience. What do you want from me?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Nothing really,” says Mikaele, digging down into his coat pocket. “Bouchard only asked that I pass a few things on to you. A message, and his well-wishes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The letter that Mikaele slides over to him is sealed with an old-fashioned wax, bright green and imprinted with a graphic of an owl.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“With my luck, opening this will curse my eyes to fall out of my head,” grumbles Peter, pulling out his utility knife and sliding it along the seal of the letter. He can tell there is something lightweight folded inside of it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He told me it is…oh, how did he put it?...a gift from the Eye. Something hand-picked for you, in exchange for your ongoing cooperation.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Peter pauses and glances over at Mikaele, the man gestures widely with both arms in exasperation. “Open it, already!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think I’ll do that on my own,” says Peter firmly, stashing his knife with one hand and keeping the letter folded shut in the other.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just a glance. Don’t make me beg. I’ve come all this way.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, woe is you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mikaele keeps staring at him, arms frozen out to each side.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Alright. A peek. Quit making a scene.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter picks up the letter and lifts it up to the cold light streaming in around them. Mikaele scoots in close and squints up at the paper with him, nearly resting his head on Peter’s shoulder to do so.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“A treasure map!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Even through the neat rows of writing on the letter encasing it, the contents are clear: an illustration of a dotted line weaving around and around through the hatchwork of inked topography. Wherever it ends (assumedly at an X) is obscured.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Does he think I’m a pirate just because I work on a ship?” grumbles Peter, but the pure absurdity of it forces a smile onto his lips. He zips the letter and the map within it into an inner pocket on his coat.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you going to use it?” asks Mikaele, pushing back in his seat and tipping his half-full glass around between his hands.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter snatches the drink out from between Mikaele’s hands to a quiet “Oy!” of protest and drinks it. He stands and raps his knuckles on the table between them, an approximation of a fond gesture.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s not any of your business, Mikaele. Your part in this is done.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You are not even going to use it!” accuses Mikaele. “I </span>
  <em>
    <span>will</span>
  </em>
  <span> buy it off you. For the record.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This was…quaint. But don’t push your luck again. I want you out of town tonight.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sure thing, Captain,” grunts Mikaele, rising to his feet and stretching. “Always a pleasure, Captain.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter stands beside their table and watches to make sure Mikaele leaves the inn, tracking his slow descent back down the hill toward the shore. Then he heads past the bar to the tiny lobby of the inn to pay for a room. When the inn owner sheepishly tells him that “your gentleman friend” had put their 70-pounds-worth of drinks on Peter’s tab, he doesn’t so much as blink.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>…</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter goes back down to the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span> the next day to catch Tadeas up to speed: he’ll be staying in Saltburn-by-the-Sea for at least a few days to sort out some personal business, and the crew can find their own lodgings around town or stay aboard the ship, so long as they leave their captain a wide berth and await further instruction. There is no mention of Isaias, though at the back of his head Peter wonders if the man will end up at the Magnus Institute with a story someday. Tadeas hands Peter his boatswain’s whistle and almost says something, then shrugs. They part ways.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>With that sorted, Peter returns to the Ship Inn and sits on the bed to open his new gift properly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Three grainy photographs are clipped to the map, and a few hastily jotted notes describing landmarks and tidal conditions beside the illustration. Peter puts those aside for later and addresses the letter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bouchard’s handwriting is generic and perfectly legible, in warm metallic ink.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Captain Lukas,</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I was warned you would be a hard man to reach. No matter. Consider this an olive branch.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I have extracted the whereabouts of Mordechai Lukas’s long-lost heirloom through no small effort. While the Institute would much benefit from its study, I hope you will appreciate the level of trust and goodwill I am demonstrating in giving its location to you, to do with as you see fit. I assume you know the rumors of this heirloom’s contents – an artifact so deeply touched by the Lonely and so fermented by age and isolation that its power could hardly be described here.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>There are many things I intend to harness in my new role as the Head of the Magnus Institute. I forfeit this one in exchange, I hope, for an eventual face-to-face meeting with you, that might become a lasting professional relationship.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I eagerly await your response.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Yours,</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Elias Bouchard</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As he reads, a faint memory is sparked in Peter’s mind. Mordechai Lukas, his most revered ancestor who established their tradition of worshipping the Forsaken, left behind only one known painted portrait (more than most Lukases have left behind). Peter can’t remember the circumstances around the portrait: where in Moorland House it hangs, who painted it, or when. But he can picture Mordechai’s bright silver hair curling around piercing blue eyes and a heavy brow, his head tilted off to the side, and yes, one huge hand curled upward, fingers loosely clasping an amber-glassed bottle with a paper furled inside.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What is in the bottle, Peter couldn’t guess.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But that hardly matters.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nathaniel admires Mordechai as much as a Lukas can really admire another. Peter can only imagine how pleased Nathaniel would be to have the bottle in his possession, after decades lost.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Find the bottle,</span>
  </em>
  <span> thinks Peter, </span>
  <em>
    <span>be back in good graces. No more Institute duty. No more ringing phones.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>…</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter opts to leave the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span> at a larger port in Kent, dismissing his crew and packing some essentials before procuring a smaller vessel for navigating the rugged coast.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He keeps the papers, his knife, a flashlight, and a few other essentials in a waterproof bag slung over one shoulder. Peter knows the channels and shorelines of England well. It doesn’t take him long to pinpoint the general area the pictures indicate: a cluster of sea caves on the Thanet coast of Kent, not terribly far from the Lukas estate itself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He points his little pilothouse into a channel that skirts the rockiest waters and leaves him a short trek to the onshore caves.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Most of them are shallow - mere holes poked into the sloping cliff face ahead of him. But there is one, and it must be </span>
  <em>
    <span>the</span>
  </em>
  <span> one, that stands apart from the rest, a small mountain of heavily-striated rock that extends out into the water, a great cavern scooped out of it like an arched doorway into darkness. He approaches it with mingled pride and apprehension.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter glances over the photographs again. He has the right cave, surely. But even accounting for the time of day, the tide seems much too high, much too close. Peter is no diver – he has not anticipated a fully-submerged cave, has been fairly sure until now that they could not exist in this region.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The water is just pooling a little in the entrance,</span>
  </em>
  <span> he comforts himself. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Farther in, it’ll dry up.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter enters the chilly cavern, running a hand along the opening. He savors the coolness of the rock and the sound of water slapping quietly against the walls all around. Only a few steps in, the daylight fades fast behind him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He flicks on his flashlight and sweeps it through the cave. Surprisingly, the cave seems to be a single self-contained cavern; the back wall becomes visible quickly, past about 30 meters of shockingly blue water and chunky stalagmites crusted with mussel colonies. He thinks – no, he can certainly see a platform of dry land just past the water.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter pulls his bag from around his shoulder and tucks it against the wall. Then he begins to walk inward, slow and cautious steps.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter glances back and forth between the path of rock and sediment below his feet to the dark wall ahead of him. The water splashes up over the edges of the narrow footway as he traverses from rock to rock. He starts to turn around to check his progress, but the movement nearly unbalances him. </span>
  <em>
    <span>It’s just a little farther,</span>
  </em>
  <span> he scolds himself. The water has soaked his pants up to the knee. He keeps his eyes trained ahead, searching for any sign of his treasure with slowly building anxiety.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The sound of the water is no longer gentle. Peter thinks something about a frog being boiled as the waves buffet up to his mid-thigh. This cacophony is nothing like the sound of the ocean from aboard his ship.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter thinks he hears something – no, he certainly hears something – besides the tide. </span>
  <em>
    <span>What if someone has followed me in?</span>
  </em>
  <span> He swivels his head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something gives way below his feet, startling him back to attention. The rocks below have turned to loose rubble, which skitters down and </span>
  <em>
    <span>ker-plunks</span>
  </em>
  <span> into the acid-blue waters as his boots touch them. He sighs and moves forward again more carefully.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But still, somewhere beneath the sound of water crashing and sucking against rock, Peter can hear that sound.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Whispering.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Well, it can’t be whispering, But wind, surely, fast and warbling through holes in the rock, coming from just ahead. Wind means an opening – another cave entrance, just out of sight, maybe, or a hole in the roof that will give him better light. He just has to reach that back wall. It was only 30 meters or so, wasn’t it? </span>
  <em>
    <span>Just a little farther.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fighting through waist-high tides, Peter drags himself to the back wall of the cave, where there is a small ridge of dry rock that he can clamber onto and catch his breath. The platform is scarcely as wide as his body, and Peter is shivering so hard he can barely keep his balance. He rakes his flashlight beam erratically across the wall he’s plastered to, up and along the looming ceiling, and then back down toward the water, for any sign of the heirloom.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There is no hole in the rock, no light streaming in. The whispering is louder now, though. Over the din of the tide, Peter can’t tell where it’s coming from. He swings his head to each side, and then -</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There. A glint of amber glass at the edge of the light.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter palms the jagged rock of the wall with both hands, his flashlight in his teeth, and begins to shimmy along the ridge toward the object.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He reaches for the bottle, skims the smooth glass with the tip of his middle finger, and then –</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tips –</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Downward.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That terrifying half-second of falling, before the icy water explodes around him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Everything is blue, so blue it hurts, spinning him from side to side like a great machine, and the whispers aren’t whispers anymore.</span>
</p>
<p><em><span>Out of the world, they moan.</span></em> <em><span>Alone and out of the -</span></em></p>
<p>
  <span>Peter opens his mouth to scream; the bubbles momentarily obscure his vision, but then as they begin to fall down past his chin, he realizes he must be upside-down.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He tilts his head back, staring hard through the blue, to the rocks below. The cave looked so small up above, but below the surface it digs impossibly deep. Lungs aching, ears full of voices, Peter wonders </span>
  <em>
    <span>if he is truly out of the world, if he has tilted down into some impossible other, if this is how they end when he Forsakes them, if there are skulls studding the rocks below like barnacles, eyeless and turned up toward him, watching, and can you really die alone when you are joining so many, in an endless -</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something knocks him on the chin, rattling his teeth and snapping his eyes open again. He gasps in pain and swallows cold salty water. The bottle had been dislodged by his fall and is sinking fast beside him. Desperately, Peter reaches out – misses it once, then twice, and kicks himself deeper with what scrap of strength is left to him, and finally he manages to hook two fingers around the bottle and pull it toward him, dragging it into him like a lifeline before looking up toward the frothing surface.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Peter breaks the surface and takes his first sobbing gasp of air, the voices are gone. His wheezing is impossibly loud in the cave. He grabs the sharp rock and drags himself up. It is a torturously slow process, and his arms are oozing blood from many shallow cuts as he collapses onto his side. He turns onto his back, ignoring the water still lapping gently at one side of him, and holds the bottle over his head to inspect it. It’s difficult to see (his flashlight is long-gone) but when he shakes the bottle, it gives a decidedly dry rattle, and he thinks the paper inside of it is safe.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not nearly worth drowning for, but Peter is delirious, and he hugs the bottle tightly into his neck with a winded laugh of relief.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Once he’s caught his breath, Peter limps out of the cave. Foolishly, he hadn’t thought to pack a towel on the trip. He strips down to his boxers and leaves the clothes to dry on the stern of the pilothouse as he makes his way back to port.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter decides he can’t face his family looking like a drowned rat, so he rests on his rented boat in a way he hopes looks more tourist than disaster-survivor, before cramming on his still-damp clothes and finding an inn in Ramsgate. He buys cigars and a sandwich and chips to scarf down, takes a cold shower, and sprawls on his single bed. But there’s an itching in him now that food won’t fix.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He stands on his room’s balcony long into the night, feeling land-locked and lost and increasingly angry.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Three days pass. Peter makes minimal outings into Port of Ramsgate, letting the fog of the Lonely crowd him in the gray streets, working down overpriced lamb platters and curries and liquors without any taste to them. His entire body feels bitten and chewed. He keeps Mordechai’s bottle on the nightstand and looks at it as he falls asleep each night.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Yes, his family will be pleased, in their way, to see the heirloom returned to Moorland House. And it will sit on some pedestal or shelf beside Mordechai’s portrait for another 150 years, no different than if he had left it in its cave. And Peter will be left alone to helm the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span> as if nothing had happened, as if Mikaele Salesa hadn’t found him in Saltburn, as if James hadn’t been replaced by some nobody.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Damn it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The next day, Peter is checking into a hotel in London.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s been a long time since he’s been in London; so long he has to buy a map. The streets are crawling with people. Peter resorts more and more to stepping into the Lonely to avoid interaction. He is stretching himself too thin. Mordechai’s bottle is always in his coat – it rattles comfortingly against his boatswain’s whistle.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter buys what he thinks is an appropriate suit for an Institute visit. The suit is too tight on his throat. The hotel is too loud on his ears. A bellhop knocks into him, stuttering apology, as he is scooping ice from the lobby icebox, and Peter steers him mindlessly into the fog of the Lonely. He feels a little better after that, but not better enough.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>…</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter nearly misses the Magnus Institute as he strolls by the Thames. It’s a small and brutally adorned building: 3 stories worth of wide-yawning windows and cracked façade. It is well-funded (the Lukases see to that) but clearly not well-renovated.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter is attuned enough to the smell of terror that he can feel it emanating from the stones of the Institute from some distance. It churns within him a number of mingled sensations – like the tempting smell of poisoned meat. Yes, a rancid heat radiates from the chapel of Jonah Magnus. Peter screws his eyes up against it as he rests against a lamp post. The smoke of a cigar offers little comfort. He’s just stalling for time. Mordechai’s bottle weighs heavy in his pocket.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter opts to avoid the front lobby and steps into the Lonely once again, finding his way by sound and feel along the semi-transparent banks of his domain as he searches for James’s – Elias’s – office. Like skimming one’s fingers through the water for stones, he navigates this vague outline of the Institute, flitting in and out of focus just enough to follow landmarks. He imagines eyes writhing under the sand at his feet. Hot coals buried just deep enough not to burn through his boots. He shudders to think what it would feel like to walk through this place unveiled, with the Eyes fully trained on his form. He wonders if the water is boiling hot beside him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Finally he finds it, and all but tumbles out of the Lonely.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The office is arranged like an interrogation room: one simple chair cowering before a dark maple desk, racketed in by tchotchke’d bookshelves and backlit by the large and intensely focused portrait of Jonah Magnus. Before it sits, presumably, Elias Bouchard.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias is younger than he expects. Comically so. He really must know someone important, to be sitting in James’s office now, looking so comfortable. To his credit, though, the young man makes no indication of surprise at Peter’s sudden appearance. He doesn’t even flinch.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mr. Lukas,” he says, primly. “Finally, we meet.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It burns when Peter shakes his hand. His wounds still sting. When he responds with a curt “Mr. Bouchard” his voice is rough with disuse, unfamiliar to his own ears. It grates.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias must notice his discomfort, because he draws his slim hand away quickly, waving it instead toward a discreet cabinet to the side of his desk: through the fogged glass paneling, Peter can pick out the shapes of various bottles.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Glass of wine? Something stronger? My collection is at your disposal.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter certainly wasn’t expecting that. “Brandy,” he says softly. He prefers a mixed drink, something sweet or sour more than bitter, but it’ll take something strong to burn the edge off of that portrait’s glare. He wipes his hands on the sides of his suit, and sits in the too-small chair.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias passes Peter a snifter of brandy with a polite nod, then sits across the desk from him and raises a glass of his own in silent toast before bringing it to his lips; his eyes are the same color as the drink, Peter notices with a quick glance, before settling his gaze somewhere beyond Elias’s shoulder. Mikaele had been spot-on: </span>
  <em>
    <span>weasel in a green suit</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Elias is somewhere between dirty blonde and light brunette, with neatly-coiffed hair, high cheekbones, and a golden collar chain sitting over his black button-up, held together by two eye-shaped pins.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Finally, Elias breaks the heavy silence. “I hope your latest voyage was…fruitful.” When Peter doesn’t answer, he keeps going unbothered. “I’ve just settled in here, myself. Still getting a feel for things, but I know it will be a good fit. I’ll have plenty of time to get acquainted, plenty of time.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias likes to hear himself talk. Typical of the Institute sort. James was much the same, that way.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter shouldn’t ask. He shouldn’t care. “How long now, since James…left it to you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias studies him closely; Peter feels pin prickles along his hands. “Ah. Nearly three months. My condolences. You and James were well-acquainted. As much as a Lukas can be well-acquainted, anyway. James thought well of you, but I wanted to see for myself. I hope to preserve your family’s mutually-beneficial relations with the Institute, but perhaps through less conventional avenues.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter fidgets in his chair. He wonders, had he not rebuked Elias’s first invitation, if he would have caught the funeral. “James mentioned me, specifically?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias laughs – three short bites, like grinding out a stubborn cigarette. A laugh that scatters ashes. “Oh, I hear bits and pieces. Lukases are a secretive lot. I don’t pretend to know more than I do. But I know enough.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s traditional for the Head of Institute to meet with the patriarch Lukas, whoever that is at the time,” says Peter, passing his empty snifter back and forth between his hands, trying to draw coolness from the glass. “Have you seen Nathaniel yet?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Of course. I arranged with him to have you come here in his place, after all. Thank you for finding your way to me. This meeting was one of my first priorities.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Why?</span>
  </em>
  <span> No, it doesn’t matter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I assume you still want something from me,” he says sharply. It feels too strange to be making small talk when he’s still battered from Elias’s fetch-quest. Better get to the heart of the matter before he loses his patience for good. “So let’s get to it.” He produces the heirloom from his pocket and holds it out between them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias’s cool expression slips away as he catches sight of the bottle. His eyes widen, and he leans forward and parts his lips. The open hunger completely reforms the features of Elias’s face, in a way Peter can’t describe as wholly unattractive. It isn’t much comforting, though, either.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It takes Elias a few moments to speak. His voice presses out narrowly through his too-straight teeth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I certainly didn’t expect this. Well, now I wonder if you’ll indulge me,” he lifts himself up a little to get closer to eye level with Peter, “with a story.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The illusion of the moment ends quickly, and now it’s Peter’s turn to break composure. “That’s what you were after,” he says with mounting anger. “You compelled me, with that bloody letter. You tricked me. I almost – ” He thinks of the feeling of eyes on him in the harsh blue waters of the cave, and the fear washes freshly over him. “I’m not one of your little statement givers!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span> “Nothing like that,” says Elias. He leans back to look up past Peter’s broad chest to his face. Peter can’t imagine what his own expression must look like, but he’s satisfied at the unease he sees on Elias. “The heirloom was yours to keep all along. All I want is the account of your journey. You can leave any personal details out, as you wish.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re trying to get your sick jollies off of my exploits, then? How predictable,” snarls Peter. “This does not bode well. My family will hear of this.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You went of your own volition. You were </span>
  <em>
    <span>curious</span>
  </em>
  <span>. And you’re still holding onto it.” He points to the bottle. “Your family – I can’t imagine they’d hold that against </span>
  <em>
    <span>me</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s right, which only makes Peter angrier.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Did you compel me?” he repeats heatedly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“…Not in any supernatural sense, no,” says Elias slowly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But,” he says after a heavy pause, “I certainly didn’t anticipate you bringing it here.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter closes his eyes. A clock ticks loudly somewhere to his side. His hands hurt.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Anger is easier, but it is tiring. Peter is tired.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Pour me another drink,” he huffs.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias genuinely laughs now, and Peter hears his chair scrape the floor as he goes back to the liquor cabinet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter sits and holds his bottle, looking in through the cracked amber glass at the tightly-rolled paper inside.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His snifter, refilled, arrives gently on the desk beside him, and Elias’s weight sinks back into his chair. “Have you opened it yet?” asks Elias. His gaze is still esurient. Peter can feel it on him, heavy like sun fatigue on a cloudless day. “Do you know what it says?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” admits Peter. “Not yet. I thought…it might be cursed.” He’s embarrassed to say it out loud, and quickly continues. “You knew its whereabouts. Do you know what it says?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias hums. “This is one of Mordechai Lukas’s most prized and powerful keepsakes. Your family would never approve of me viewing its contents.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter rubs a thumb over the bottle’s length. “They’re not here,” he says eventually, then: “I’ll think on that. I’ll hang onto it.” He puts it back in his pocket in a gesture of finality. At least this decision he can still hold power over.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“…You are unusual, for a Lukas,” says Elias quietly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter looks up, and finally his eyes lock with Elias’s. They’re bright copper, and too keen. Something shifts in Peter, somehow, like a reflex is firing off, like lactic acid blasting out from deep within his muscles, but he doesn’t know what to do with it at all, there’s nothing to run from. He tears his gaze away and re-positions himself back to impartial.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span> “What does that mean?” he asks finally.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It means I’d still like to continue meeting with you, if you’re open to it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“To talk, what, finances? I’m hardly the expert of the family.” What Peter means is he knows nothing about the Lukas fortune, where it comes from or where it goes, only that he can use it however he likes, but he isn’t going to say that to Elias.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“In time,” says Elias.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Beholding,” exhales Peter. “So deliberately enigmatic. You’re all the damn same.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias smiles, and it’s almost warm. “Safe travels, Peter. Hold onto that story. In case you change your mind someday.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Why does he say his name like that? Peter says nothing back – just nods and makes his leave. The bottle is heavy in his pocket.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>How strange. Peter is still thinking of Elias on his way to the hotel.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>…</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>In time.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>…</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <b>Moorland House, Kent, England - 1997</b>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Being on the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span> feeds the hunger, Peter tells himself, and gradually he thinks it does. But after five months on and off the sea, a phone rings again and Nathaniel’s voice on the other line hardly surprises Peter. Nathaniel tells him there’s something they </span>
  <em>
    <span>must</span>
  </em>
  <span> discuss in person, and seems stunned when Peter volunteers to return to Moorland House without quarrel.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter has kept the bottle heirloom on his body religiously all these months – he forgets that it’s in his coat as he’s packing for Kent and has a momentary breakdown tossing all of his belongings around in search of it. If Nathaniel gets antsy and tries to revoke his ocean privileges again, he’ll have a card to play.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Moorland House is exactly as it’s always been: a looming patchwork of disjointed pieces, all sharp angles sticking out against each other with tall, plain windows poked into them. The façade looks as if it’s constructed from the same plain gray slabs of stone as the many graves littering the nearby tree-line. The old fortress and accompanying cemetery are separated from the main road by a tall gate and a massive stretch of grass and driveway, devoid of cars. Huge ash and pine trees curl possessively around the manor – the forest feels like it could swallow Moorland House at any moment.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Inside, Moorland is silent and drafty. Peter knows there are people about: cousins, uncles and aunts, housekeepers and tutors, but they move out of sight; no one greets him or comes across his path. Peter’s footfalls clatter all around him. He doesn’t need to guess where Nathaniel is – urgent matters are discussed in the first-floor parlor.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A similar room in any other home would be perfect for a massive dining table or something like that. But it’s just a shell: high-vaulted ceiling and dark-paneled walls lined with drab landscape paintings on one side and curtainless ceiling-high windows on the other, there is nothing within but an unlit fireplace and a single armchair.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Near that fireplace is Nathaniel Lukas, and in that armchair is Elias Bouchard.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter stops in the doorway.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The first instinct is to flee – of course – but what would he gain? More ringing phones. More mystifying letters.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Each step a deliberate effort, Peter walks past Elias without acknowledging him and toward his uncle, who is gazing out the window at an angle, toward the distant forest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Nathaniel does not immediately address him, Peter finds his gaze wandering the room again. He notices that, randomly placed amidst the many oil landscapes of the inner wall, there is a single portrait piece, mostly obscured by a small curtain tacked over it. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Mordechai Lukas.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Peter thinks he can see pale fingers curled over brass at the exposed bottom corner of the piece.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t know </span>
  <em>
    <span>how</span>
  </em>
  <span> he knows, but Peter knows that the portrait being carefully covered is an indication that company was expected. Elias’s presence was premeditated.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter feels too small here.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He comes to a halt directly parallel to his uncle, keeping his eyes on the wall of paintings to his other side. And he waits.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eventually, Nathaniel obliges, eyes still on the distance.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mr. Bouchard and I have been discussing.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And?” says Peter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“…</span>
  <em>
    <span>And</span>
  </em>
  <span> you won’t be responsible for any of the financial duties of the Lukas family, or for attending Institute functions…yet,” says Nathaniel.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter knows better than to be relieved. “But?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“In the short-term, you’ll be taking the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span> to Greece and back. The details will be explained along the way – I don’t need to know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why Greece, specifically? We don’t – ” Peter’s eyes flicker to the side, thinking of Elias, overhearing – “We don’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>move cargo</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“A lot of questions,” says Nathaniel blandly, but the disapproval emanates from him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter rubs his palms together, crosses his arms. He hates this feeling: waiting for the wave to hit.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You won’t be taking cargo there, but you will be returning with it. Mr. Bouchard can explain on the way. As I’ve said.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It all clicks into place.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter’s mouth falls open; he fumbles for words.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m – I’m being rented out now, as a…a what, a bloody escort?” says Peter, voice rising. “That’s not only too undignified a task for a Lukas, it’s - !”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You have no idea of what is fit for a Lukas!” barks Nathaniel, and while it can’t at all be considered a scream, it’s enough to echo in the huge, high-ceilinged parlor.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They all stand there a moment in the echoes of Nathaniel’s outburst, before eventually he speaks, voice barely above a whisper.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“…Apologies, Mister Bouchard. That was a disgraceful display of volume. It won’t happen again.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hardly a problem,” says Elias coolly, from somewhere out of sight behind them. Peter becomes suddenly, electrifyingly aware that Elias has been watching their confrontation this entire time. “I’ve seen much higher drama in the halls of my Institute.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well it has no place here,” says Nathaniel, and there’s no mistaking that Nathaniel is looking toward Peter now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Peter is already storming out of the parlor, and in a few moments he’s crossing the dewy lawn toward the cluster of simple gray tombstones against the edge of the forest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The day has so far been temperate, but a deep and welcomed chill settles over him as he enters the family cemetery.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter walks a few meters in, then stands and rests his eyes. He doesn’t know how long he stays like that, perfectly still – it’s hard to determine the passage of time through the mist hanging around him. He had come prepared for the worst and still walked away horrified. But when the first rush of anger clears, he is just tired again. He squeezes the bridge of his nose between his fingertips and runs his hand down his chin, opening his eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span> “You’re not as clever as you think,” he says loudly. “I hear your footsteps, come out.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias steps fully into view from behind him, moving gingerly around the rubble of a fallen grave marker. For a moment, Peter is worried that the man is going to ask him if he’s alright, but he simply walks around Peter, inspecting the grave markers in various states of disrepair. Peter wonders what he is looking to learn – none of them have names.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How much farther do these go on?” Elias asks, gesturing vaguely out toward the edge of the forest; graves poke out of the fog at the edge of the trees, carelessly placed like natural rubble.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s a big family,” replies Peter as Elias walks past him. Some of the graves, possibly of his most faithful and diligent ancestors, extend past the trees, allowed to disintegrate where light can’t reach them. When he first started running away from home but hadn’t worked up the nerve to leave the Lukas property, he would find his way back through the fog using that ragged trail of unmarked stones.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something about leaving this nosy little man to his own devices here feels wrong. Peter has no choice but to follow. While they never settle into step side-by-side, they eventually find a walking pace where Peter can keep an eye on Elias without getting too close. Still, the fog soon becomes so thick that Peter can hardly see him from a few meters away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You aren’t afraid,” Peter says, but he means it as a question.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t notice at first when Elias has stopped, and nearly bumps into him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“A little,” Elias says, but his voice is steady.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“A little,” repeats Peter. “You know, most men who enter a place like this feel a little more than </span>
  <em>
    <span>a little</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I see. Well, you seem comfortable. The most comfortable I’ve seen you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m a Lukas. I was born here.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“In the graveyard?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Smartass,” snaps Peter. He forces out a sharp breath. How does Elias manage to get such a rise out of him? “You shouldn’t even be here. I don’t understand why Nathaniel, or anyone, continues to indulge you, when you are so blatantly disrespectful.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t think I ask for much,” replies Elias.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’ve somehow convinced my family to loan </span>
  <em>
    <span>my</span>
  </em>
  <span> ship out for your little pleasure cruise.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, that isn’t much at all,” says Elias, head turning away as if he’s spotted something of interest. He starts walking again, into a small clearing in the trees. “You’ll still be on your beloved ship,” Elias says over his shoulder. “Just pretend I’m not there.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter follows more closely now. “That isn’t how it works.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias crouches down slowly and looks at a nearby grave: it’s a battered gray obelisk, waist-height, with the long-faded shape of a closed fist carved in relief on each side. Elias lifts a gloved finger to its surface, tracing letters long since illegible.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span> “Don’t touch,” says Peter, more firmly this time. “These graves are very old. Honestly, I’m astounded the family let you set foot on this estate at all. You must have offered them something good.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias doesn’t answer, just stands up and pockets his hands. Now the man is being mysterious, on the one occasion Peter is trying for information.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span> “Your predecessor took some time to gain their trust,” Peter continues. “He didn’t offer up our family heirlooms like cheap bargaining chips….and yet the Lukases make exceptions for you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, why do </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>make exceptions for me?” asks Elias, and now he is paying attention. He looks up at Peter from the corners of his eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias steps into the space between them, reaching out and working a crinkle out of Peter’s woolen sleeve as casually as if it’s his own. “Is it because you think there’s more to gain from me as well?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter doesn’t know.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“As you’ve said, I am a new face. Not just at the Institute but in our very well-established industry. Could it be that I’m in over my head…a very lonely man looking for alliances?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Alliances,” repeats Peter, but of course the word that catches him is </span>
  <em>
    <span>lonely</span>
  </em>
  <span>. That’s pointed in a way that not even he can miss. He can’t believe what an about-face this stiff-collared young man has taken in the little time he has known him – he </span>
  <em>
    <span>hasn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> known him – and he’s got that feeling again, that bone-deep and totally useless instinct that tells him to </span>
  <em>
    <span>move</span>
  </em>
  <span> – move, </span>
  <em>
    <span>how</span>
  </em>
  <span>?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Normally bodily contact makes Peter’s skin sear, but here in the cool, swirling fog it takes him a moment to even register that Elias’s hands are touching him. One palm is brushing along his ribcage slowly as Elias probes his fingers slowly deeper into Peter’s coat. The other is holding his wrist delicately between ring finger and thumb, the thumb rubbing gently at the blue curve of veins beneath his skin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Within the obstructive walls of the Institute, Peter had felt painfully solid, painfully tangible. A single glancing blow might have shattered him. Here, he feels malleable beneath Elias’s gaze. Nothing can be done to him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So he simply waits, keeping his own eyes trained on the glint of Elias’s small gold earring as Elias’s gloved hand skims along his diaphragm, then down slowly along the soft curve of his waist.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Elias tilts his head up, his lips are slightly parted, not quite smiling, and his teeth glint in the mist. There’s a flicker of something in his brazen eyes, and Peter realizes why as Elias’s hand gropes the shape of the brass bottle in Peter’s inner coat pocket.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“As I thought,” whispers Elias. “Selfish man.”</span>
</p>
<p><span>Peter doesn’t know if </span><em><span>he</span></em> <em><span>wants to lift Elias so high his feet leave the earth, to see that hungry smile drop off his mouth, remind him where he is and who he’s facing and feel his fear seep out of him, or if he wants to lick that smile off instead, bite and suck the mist from that glistening mouth, press him down into the fog until they both lose form and swirl together, around and around, Elias’s hand</span></em></p>
<p>
  <span>Elias’s hand makes contact again, pulling Peter’s face down toward his own, and before Peter realizes it, he’s slipping through his fingers, back and away - he loses his footing, and when he lands flat on his back, he’s on the quiet shore of the Lonely.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter lies there listening to himself breathe for a long time. The heat rushing through him is deafening – he thinks of a tide in a cave. He doesn’t stand up until the cold has numbed him through.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hands trembling, he takes out his bottle, presses it to his sternum.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he returns to the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Elias is there waiting.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. You Don’t Ever Take Something the Eye Wants</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>The </b>
  <b>
    <em>Tundra,</em>
  </b>
  <b> en route from England to Greece, 1997</b>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>Six days from Rochester Harbor to Port of Piraeus, Greece. Seven if he’s being conservative. He hears Greece and he points toward Piraeus. 3200 nautical miles. He’ll have to wait for more answers in the meantime.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s no need to keep up appearances for any unfortunate new crewmates, so Peter strips his usual crew down even further than bare-bones. He is almost surprised that Tadeas, bless him, agrees to join at all. The man is unwavering. Tadeas raises a brow at Elias, a sore thumb in his tight turtleneck, sporty gray coat, and crisp white platform sneakers, dragging an expensive-looking duffel bag behind him. Then he nods, takes Elias’s luggage unprompted, and escorts him to his cabin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something about Elias really does prompt </span>
  <em>
    <span>exceptions.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It isn’t the first time Peter has taken the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span> onto the sea without sacrificial intent. Apart from his god, he really does love being on the water with every part of himself. He can try to savor the quiet and familiar solitude, he tells himself, despite the unsavory unknown of Elias’s plans for Greece.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias admittedly copes well with sea life – infuriatingly well, even. He can’t seem to get enough of it. He stares a lot – sometimes out to sea and sometimes at seemingly nothing at all. He reads up. Every few hours he seems to be carrying a different iteration of Mediterranean Port Guidebook or Historic Landmarks of Greece Travel Guide, etc. And before long, he’s hovering in the bridge, asking about the navigational instruments, or entering the Officers’ Mess, practicing his Greek letters on anyone within earshot. It’s almost comical, the way Peter’s crewmates cast him their furtive glances – like he is testing their faith, waiting for them to slip up by engaging with this incessant outsider.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span> is breezing at a steady 24 knots past the coast of Portugal when Elias finally decides to pester the Captain himself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Your crew is not very talkative,” he observes, coming to stand beside Peter on the bridge. “Are they?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ah, you’re catching on,” grumbles Peter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But they are efficient. How long have you been Captain of the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ah, you’ve lost it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something obscures the horizon before him – Elias is waving a lighter in front of his face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter glares down at him, and Elias lifts a cigar in the other hand. There’s one clenched in his teeth, as well.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter huffs in annoyance and swipes the offered cigar, and feigns indifference as Elias leans up on tiptoes to light it in his mouth for him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Offering accepted?” Elias asks, a smile evident in his tone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter watches their twin streams of smoke waft out into the russet sky. “Been on the sea since 19, became Captain in mid-twenties. So…” He works it out by counting fingers – it takes him longer than it should. “Ten-years-ish.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hm. You look older.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter scratches his cheek. “Thanks…?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Not a compliment, as much as an observation.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Right.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A few moments of blessed silence, before Elias presses on.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know you don’t care to know things, but seeing as there’s no good conversation on this ship…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Here it comes. Peter exhales noncommittally through his nostrils, which Elias takes as a positive sign.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve been pondering the Greek mythos</span>
  <em>
    <span>.</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m really not – ”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span> “</span>
  <em>
    <span>While thus the gods in various league engage, Achilles glow’d with more than mortal rage: Hector, he sought; in search of Hector turn’d his eyes around, for Hector only burn’d; And burst like lightning through the ranks, and vow’d to glut the god of battles with his blood.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Homer’s</span>
  <em>
    <span> Iliad</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Book 20, Verse 363.</span>
  <em>
    <span>”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You were right,” says Peter once Elias is finished reciting. “I didn’t care to know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s important, Peter. Pertinent, even.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What’s important is pointing the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span> wherever it is you so badly need to go, letting you run your </span>
  <em>
    <span>errands,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and then dumping you back in England.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And then what?” asks Elias, vexatious. “Half a year more at sea before you’re curious and restless again, you find your way back to me, accuse me of compelling you, rinse and repeat?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter’s cigar is down to ash. He turns on his heel and walks away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Unsurprisingly, Elias follows close behind him, down from the bridge to the main deck and through tight-packed rows of rusted cargo crates.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That was…poorly worded.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter stares ahead.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What can you tell me about Achilles?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Plenty. Peter was spoon-fed Greek tragedy from birth, has long known the burden of fate, has spent many lonely evenings out at sea thinking of the tragic inevitabilities of his own life, and he thinks he’s not too much unlike Achilles, a man melted and molded into some semblance of immortal in spite of the gods, thrust from mortal cradle into murky depths and knowing, knowing by deep instinct that the briefest touch of humanity is fated to damn him –</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He isn’t going to share that with Elias, and certainly not aboard the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span>. The very thought of it is sacrilegious.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fellow with the weak ankles,” is what he settles for, gritting his teeth. He picks up his pace, weaving through the crates. He spots the corner of one and moves toward it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, yes,” comes Elias’s voice, sounding impatient and a little farther away as Peter’s long legs quickly out-stride him. “It was a mortal arrow, guided by the gods to his heel, that killed Achilles. But his death isn’t what the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Iliad</span>
  </em>
  <span> is about. Not directly. Greek epics are wonderful that way. The Iliad is 15,693 lines, but in all those words, it doesn’t pretend to concern itself with beginnings or endings. It – ”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Elias rounds the corner, there is only fog left of Peter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>…</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter only manages to avoid Elias for a day before he is found again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter is standing on the main deck gazing out to sea – he nearly leaps in surprise as Elias gives his ankles a light kick from behind, a gesture that’s playful or scornful, he isn’t sure. Before he can round on the man to retaliate, Elias holds up his hands, and he is holding two bottles of wine.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I have a riddle,” he says, and hands Peter a bottle.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Another offering,</span>
  </em>
  <span> thinks Peter, pulling a face, and he really should know better, but he’s already stabbing the cork and yanking it out.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Heracles,” says Elias.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Heracles</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” repeats Peter after taking a long, exasperated gulp.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span> “The great divine hero, toiling through Twelve Labors, et cetera, et cetera. Heracles famously kills the Hydra, dipping his arrows in its poisonous blood to use against his foes. Some years later, his wife Deianeira is harassed by the centaur Nessus and Heracles kills him with a poisoned arrow. Further years later, he wears the blood-soaked pelt of Nessus gifted to him by his wife. The pelt poisons him, and is slowly killing him, so he has a pyre built to burn his body.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Good wine,” replies Peter, taking another drink.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias looks like he might kick him again for a moment, and then he takes a sip from his own bottle. “Who killed Heracles?  Deianeira, Nessus, or the Hydra?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter doesn’t like how closely Elias is looking at him now and fidgets, runs a hand along the cool railing. “I don’t know…but considering it’s Greek mythos we’re talking about, I bet the gods decided the man’s fate long before it ever happened. Not much point in understanding the semantics of </span>
  <em>
    <span>who</span>
  </em>
  <span> and </span>
  <em>
    <span>what</span>
  </em>
  <span> exactly did it, in my book. Point is, he died.” He chuckles – that must be the wine.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias’s eyes are stormy, and his reply is reprimanding. “None of the above, Peter.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How’s that?” asks Peter, even though he really shouldn’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The poison,” says Elias, and his fists are clenched in front of him. “The poison is killing Heracles slowly, and agonizingly yes, but he reaches his end when burned at the pyre, at his own request. Heracles kills Heracles.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Arrows, death, fate,” sighs Peter, resting his chin in his palm. “You still haven’t given me any answers about what you’re looking for in Greece.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I very much have,” replies Elias grimly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“…What’s it got to do with me?” asks Peter, taking another drink.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias rounds on him with a counter-question. “What’s wrong with understanding the </span>
  <em>
    <span>who</span>
  </em>
  <span> and </span>
  <em>
    <span>what</span>
  </em>
  <span>? Do those scare you, Peter?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter doesn’t even bother slipping out of view before escaping to the Lonely this time. He feels the traces of Elias’s anger as he vanishes, and relishes it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>…</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>The next morning, Peter finds a note tucked under one of the radars in the navigation bridge.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Peter,</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Since you don’t seem to enjoy our in-person discussions, maybe this is easier.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Yours,</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Elias</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Included with the note is a scrap of blank paper and a metallic gold pen.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter intervenes when Elias’s dinner is being delivered to him that evening, and puts his own reply on the tray: a glass of wine, a crushed, emptied pen, and a returning note:</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>If I pour your pen ink into this wine and have Tadeas bring it to you…did I kill you, did Tadeas kill you, or did you kill yourself by giving me the pen?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tadeas gives Peter an uncertain look, but carries it off without a word.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The next afternoon, Tadeas comes to Peter’s cabin in person, looking acutely uncomfortable now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Elias has a message for you,” Tadeas says, god-fearing. “’</span>
  <em>
    <span>The wine was wonderful. Thank you.</span>
  </em>
  <span>’ And…he gave me this.” Tadeas places something onto Peter’s desk and leaves quickly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s a pamphlet-sized map, folded meticulously into a small square centered on the Greek island town of Chalcis.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s not much, but it’s something.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter guides the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span> north from Piraeus, through the more obscure channels leading into Euboea. He spends the last evening of their voyage out on the flying bridge. It’s a particularly violent sunset – sun bleeds into sky bleeds into ocean. Peter’s eyes are closed as he savors the warmth of the dying light.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He hears Elias come to the railing beside him, and he wonders – if he pretends not to notice, will the man simply leave him alone?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Since you’ve destroyed my pen,” says Elias’s voice close by, “we’re back to in-person transmission.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then: silence.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter cracks an eye open to sneak a glance at Elias. The wind is tousling his hair, his head is tilted up into the wind, and his eyes are closed. He looks…delicate. Accepting.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The sun has set his body aflame.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter closes his eyes, too. They stand like that until darkness falls.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>The next day, they arrive in Chalcis.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>…</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Όχθη </b>
  <b>Hotel, Chalcis, Greece - 1997</b>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They arrive at night. City lights drizzle gold into the harbor, and the wind nips as Elias waves them a cab. Peter watches Chalcis go by through the window – all tight-packed white high-rises stippled with flowerbox’d balconies, just a stone’s throw from the main body of Greece. Their cab deposits them at a nondescript but pricy-looking hotel a few blocks from the water</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The lobby of the </span>
  <span>Όχθη smells like lemon and bleach and is mercifully empty. Elias checks them in while Peter hovers by the coffee bar, twiddling with his sweater. Elias leads them several stories up and hands Peter a room key. He laughs at the scandalous look Peter gives him before producing his own key and moving to the next door over to open it for himself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Try to make yourself comfortable,” says Elias after a moment, leaning out around the doorframe.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Unlikely,” replies Peter. “</span>
  <span>Are you going to tell me who we’re meeting tomorrow for this arrow of yours?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You </span>
  <em>
    <span>were</span>
  </em>
  <span> listening. But no,” says Elias, pert, and shuts his door.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter trudges into his own room, dropping his barebones personal items by the closet and scanning quickly. It’s cozy, probably – white walls, white furniture, sliding glass doors opening to a balcony with a view. There is a massive cerulean painting above the headboard. Peter sits, hands folded in his lap, and looks at it. He has poor taste for someone so wealthy, he knows, but he can tell this room is nice. He’s starting to think he can pretend there is no scheming involved and just enjoy his unexpected vacation when Elias barges in unannounced.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Look at you, having fun already,” says Elias dryly as Peter switches his stare to a random wall closer to the door in order to track Elias’s movements. </span>
  <span>Elias pokes around the room, opening each door and cabinet and nodding to himself, then stands at the glass doors as Peter sits on the bed, blankly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Peter,” says Elias eventually.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter moves his eyes incrementally closer to the man, taking in the view of the water.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Stand, please.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter, for whatever reason, obeys.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Come here.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter takes a step, then stops, realizing what he’s doing. “Something you </span>
  <em>
    <span>need</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” he asks, with as much displeasure as he can inject.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, no. Not yet. But I do have an observation…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t you always.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Back at Moorland House,” continues Elias doggedly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Bouchard,” says Peter, with a note of warning.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hear me out – back at Moorland House, when you and Nathaniel exchanged words…you stood perfectly parallel to one another, but looked off to your respective rights at 90 degrees, toward opposing walls.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter’s skin prickles just remembering it. </span>
  <em>
    <span>How closely Elias’s eyes must have been trained on him, all raw nerves, in a room that echoes every misgiving, every memory.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, it’s peculiar,” says Elias, as Peter bites his tongue hard, forcing his thoughts down. “You didn’t make eye contact with your uncle once in the time I saw you two together.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter draws in a deep breath and lets it out, makes himself still. “It’s a Lukas family tradition. We don’t know each other’s faces. We don’t know what we don’t need to know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It isn’t painful, not knowing the faces of your loved ones when you see them?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s second nature to us,” says Peter stiffly, “so I really wouldn’t know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’ve made eye contact with me,” says Elias.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s not as if I don’t know </span>
  <em>
    <span>how</span>
  </em>
  <span>. And when have I?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“In my office, when you brought Mordechai’s bottle. I don’t imagine you remember it. I had just called you unusual.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Unusual for a Lukas,” says Peter, and then more softly, “Well. I wonder, more and more.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He feels light pressure on the curvature of his jaw. Elias takes Peter’s face very gingerly in one hand, as if expecting him to slip away again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This time Peter was anticipating it. He pushes Elias backwards into the glass door and plants a hand beside his blonde head, leans down to look deep into his eyes. Elias’s eyes are huge and brilliant amber, slivered with dark green and brown around the edges. They flicker rapidly back and forth between Peter’s, answers and secrets hoarded behind them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Silently, each goads the other to make a move first.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Thirty seconds passes, then a minute. Neither of them moves in or away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s a sharp rap at the door. Peter nearly leaps off the ground in alarm, steadying himself with a grip on Elias’s shoulder as he turns on his heel to face it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Room service, Peter, room service,” Elias says, but he’s letting out a heavy breath as well. “I ordered us dinner. Move aside.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias brushes off Peter’s hand and moves past him to open the door, sparing Peter the indignity of pointing out that, when startled, Peter had moved to put himself defensively in front of Elias.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You drink,” says Elias after waving off the server and pulling the cart of fragrant platters beside the bed, “so I assume you eat as well.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do I look malnourished to you?” asks Peter, grateful for the distraction of the meal, if nothing else.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias spreads the silver platters out on the bed: fish grilled whole, salads with goat cheese, olives and skewered meats, all heaped with sliced lemon and mint.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I never much liked that,” says Peter, sitting on one crooked knee and looking down at the arrangement.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What’s that?” asks Elias.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This way of cooking the whole fish with its eyes still in.” Peter drags a piece of iceberg over and covers the fish’s face, a soggy little burial shroud. “I don’t want my food to watch me as I devour it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How considerate of you,” says Elias, and he skewers the fish on his fork, lifts it wholly and bites down hard on its head with a resounding crunch.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The action is so sudden and grotesque that Peter has to laugh – he doesn’t know if it’s discomfort or genuine delight.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Vile!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Dead is dead….but I would always prefer to see what’s coming and from which direction.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Not everything has to be a metaphor,” says Peter, wrinkling his nose. “And it’s not like it helped the fish much.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, I suppose not,” laughs Elias, running his tongue over his teeth. The motion catches Peter like a magnet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“On the way here,” says Peter, floundering, “You asked me about Achilles.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I did,” says Elias, still smiling.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“My family had a…light hand…in my instruction. But some subjects were drilled in too deep to forget. Greek tragedy, for example.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias is cutting a piece of fish more delicately for himself now, squeezing lemon on it before touching it experimentally to his tongue. “Tell me about that,” he says between motions, not unlike a teacher prompting their student. Peter should probably feel condescended toward, but he’s already thinking back to those foggy memories, lying in a shaft of cold light in some forgotten hall of Moorland House, books strewn around him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I wouldn’t know where to start…there’s so much of it,” he muses.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No need to </span>
  <em>
    <span>start</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” replies Elias, chewing. “As I’ve said, the beginnings and endings aren’t so much the point. Where is your head at now?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Staring at Elias’s eyes, mouth, eyes again, waiting for someone to make the first move.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Somewhere in the war,” Peter says, “between a thousand other bigger things, Achilles pursues a young Trojan prince, ah...I’m no good with names…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Troilus.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Right. And he, uh…he lusts so desperately for Troilus, who would not yield to him, that he ends up crushing him to death, taking his body apart. It was one of so many killings. At least to Achilles I’m sure it was just one of many. Nothing more.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I imagine so,” says Elias pleasantly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Literally speaking, then, Achilles is killed in recompense for the murder of Troilus. But ultimately, it’s nothing to do with Troilus… Achilles is too powerful for a man, and belligerent of the gods, and the gods guide the arrow into Achilles’ heel for it. He…” Peter pauses to scratch the developing stubble on his jaw and catch his breath – he can’t remember the last time he spoke this much. “Well, Achilles spends a lot of the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Iliad</span>
  </em>
  <span> running around and killing, doesn’t he? Choking the rivers with bodies and all that, always a different target for a different reason, sometimes no reason really at all. He chases Troilus, Polyxena, Hector….he chases Hector for so long and with such fire that the gods themselves have to intervene, or else he’ll destroy all the world beneath them. He’s mad with…” Peter sits up. “...he’s mad with the Hunt.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Very good,” whispers Elias, and he’s looking at Peter so attentively that Peter flushes, in a way he knows is obvious. He continues at a quicker pace.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Is this artifact we’re after…the arrow that killed Achilles? An artifact of the Hunt?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes and no,” replies Elias eventually. “It’s only </span>
  <em>
    <span>the arrow that killed Achilles</span>
  </em>
  <span> in a symbolic sense. Obviously the thing itself is untraceable, lost if it ever existed at all. But in essence…yes. For your second question…I don’t have all the answers to that. Followers of the Hunt covet it as their own, but I think it holds much more power than they know. I believe…something that could kill an unkillable man…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, that’s more like the End, isn’t it?” asks Peter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He swears that he sees Elias shudder, but it’s so brief that he can’t be sure.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If I can get a hold of it, and study it…I’ll know. I’ll know for sure what it is, and what it can do, and…” Elias trails off, lost in thought.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Taking notes from Achilles,” says Peter, faking a lighthearted tone as best he can, “seems like a path to an inevitable end.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias is silent. Rather than answer, he reaches out and brushes a chunk of hair from Peter’s forehead.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s all very convenient,” continues Peter, as if he hadn’t. “All those neatly organized gods of the Greek pantheon. Each one responsible for their own domains, all meddling in the affairs of men and each other, snuffing out lives in the process. So much petty drama as a result. Well, it’s absurd. We know better, don’t we?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The two men smirk at each other, self-satisfied with their inside joke.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But I imagine the Greeks didn’t find it so funny,” continues Peter. “The gods controlling their entire destinies from birth to death. I imagine that would be...” He looks out the window, out to the dark line of the sea. “…sort of frightening.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So if you’re implying that the Greek pantheon isn’t too much unlike the Entities we serve,” says Elias, “Do you think the Lonely dictates your choices, and the Beholding mine?” Direct, for once.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t pretend to know things like that,” replies Peter hastily. The word </span>
  <em>
    <span>sacrilegious </span>
  </em>
  <span>springs to his mind again. “I feed my god because it feeds me. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Unusual</span>
  </em>
  <span> as I might be, I still understand the power of tradition, and I know the reality of fate.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias drops his fork abruptly, as if slapped.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“…Did you choose your god, Elias? As far as you can –?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” interjects Elias, defiantly. “In many ways, at many turns, I chose it. It has been entirely my choice. I reject your notion of fate, I </span>
  <em>
    <span>loathe </span>
  </em>
  <span>it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You reject fate?” asks Peter, skeptically.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The will of a man who knows the weight of his choices cannot be denied.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You keep thinking like that,” sighs Peter, “It will swallow you up. Take it from someone who’s been steeped in it for as long as I have.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For whatever reason, that makes Elias laugh, </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> laugh. He laughs so hard he brushes tears from his eyes when he’s done.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Irritated, Peter asks him what's funny.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Maybe you’re right,” concedes Elias. “You and I practice our faiths very differently, that much is obvious.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This arrow sounds like a perfect fit for you,” decides Peter. “It all reeks of hubris. Hubris is very much your color.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know what you mean. My Institute collects artifacts to observe them,” says Elias, putting on exaggerated indignity. “I don’t keep them to </span>
  <em>
    <span>accessorize</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Beholding isn’t a matter of vanity.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well then maybe you’re unusual for a Watcher,” says Peter. “Because I don’t get that impression of you at all.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you saying you </span>
  <em>
    <span>know</span>
  </em>
  <span> me?” Elias lifts a brow.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fuck off,” says Peter, and he can’t help but grin back at him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>…</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias clearly has no intention of telling Peter exactly who they’re rendezvousing with in the morning, nor who they might encounter along the way. But he has nabbed a local map from the hotel lobby. They unfurl the map on the bed between them, picking several emergency meeting points which Elias pronounces in flawless Greek and circles in warm metallic ink. Elias makes Peter trace their route to the rendezvous point three times before finally relenting and folding the map up to tuck into his back pocket.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then the last thing to take care of is a good night’s rest,” says Elias crisply as he stands and stretches.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Nervous at all? Or do you already know how it’s going to play out?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If I could see the </span>
  <em>
    <span>future</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Peter, I’d hardly need a bodyguard.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Bodyguard,” echoes Peter, sinking his weight back on his elbows and watching Elias collect up the platters from their meal. “So you admit that’s what this is.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias stacks the platters meticulously on the dresser by the door and grabs his coat. “Well…a ship captain with the unlimited time and budget for a trip with many unknown elements, who is also…physically imposing…I’m too opportunistic to pass that up.” He sounds embarrassed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m the first to </span>
  <em>
    <span>poof</span>
  </em>
  <span> away at signs of trouble,” says Peter, emphasizing the </span>
  <em>
    <span>poof</span>
  </em>
  <span> with a flex of his fingers. “Your plan might backfire badly, here. Is it possible you’ve misread me?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hm. You think so? I’ll take you up on that wager. I </span>
  <em>
    <span>am </span>
  </em>
  <span>eager to see how this unfolds.” Coat on, looking composed again, Elias nods at Peter and opens the door. “I’ll come get you at 7 sharp tomorrow. Try not to </span>
  <em>
    <span>poof</span>
  </em>
  <span> away when I knock.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter watches him close the door and lies back against the headboard, listening as Elias enters the room next door a moment later. He hears the thud of what might be shoes being kicked off, and eventually the bed somewhere on the other side of the wall creaking beneath weight.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter is struck by a particularly intrusive thought – that they must only be a couple of feet apart right now, though they can’t see one another.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He tilts his head back against the wall, closing his eyes, and thinks of Elias.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter unzips his trousers, palming at himself through his briefs before pushing them impatiently down, too hot to his own touch.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wonders if Elias is thinking about him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wonders if Elias </span>
  <em>
    <span>Knows</span>
  </em>
  <span> that he is thinking about Elias.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He thinks of Elias’s golden eyes, brightly leering over his glass of bourbon, curious and compelling.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He thinks of James, shivering, leaning into him, trying to loop a hand around his arm for support, but Peter is already dissolving, mist between James’s trembling fingers.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He thinks of Elias, cupping his chin tenderly in the graveyard of Moorland House, trying to pull him closer.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He thinks of Troilus, crushed to death in Achilles’ embrace, one of the endless casualties of a crusade that has nothing to do with him.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He thinks of Elias, standing on the Tundra beside him, the wind jostling his hair out of its usual pretentious coif, his skin dyed the same hungry red as the sky, the sea, and all the world around them, like blood, like oil, spilling out, filling Peter’s head, and he’s grasping, he’s grasping for bottles, he’s grasping for bottles as he drowns.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he finishes with a soft moan, he thinks that he can hear an answering moan from the other side of the wall.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>…</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter’s eyes snap open.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’d been dreaming. That’s an anomaly. Terminus must be getting in his head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s 7 on the dot, as promised.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias is waiting in the hallway, impeccably dressed and wide awake, tapping a foot impatiently as Peter gathers his things and grabs a cup of coffee, loaded with sugar, from the lobby. Outside, it’s sunny.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter has seen a lot of the world, but he has a soft spot for places like Chalcis.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Chalcis is simple. Everything points toward the water.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias is drinking in the sights and sounds of the city around them. Peter is looking ahead toward the harbor. Peter pretends not to notice that they’re walking closely in step with each other, their arms brushing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Pantheon Café is what they’re looking for, according to Elias. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Seriously? Yes, seriously.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>According to the map, the Pantheon is just a few blocks ahead of them now, nestled right on the water. Peter takes in a deep lungful of salty air. The anticipation is enough to make him light-headed. He quickens his pace, pulling out of their lockstep and pressing forward toward the pull of the water.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then he realizes Elias has stopped walking.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias is standing in the shade of a building, eyes closed, body perfectly still.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter calls his name impatiently, and that seems to rouse him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m right behind you,” Elias says, and he squeezes the back of Peter’s arm briefly before they start walking again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They emerge from their narrow cross-street onto Voudouri, the avenue along the harbor packed full of copy-paste hotels and open-air cafés. Here, the Old Chalcis Bridge splits the South and North Euboean Gulfs, a tense squeeze between too vast bodies of water. The narrowness of the channel pressed into this broad, unsheltered avenue makes Peter nervous. It occurs to him, for some reason, how wildly out of place he is here. There are civilians out in droves: biking, sailing and eating sushi with a Mediterranean twist – they part around him without seeming to notice they’re doing it. Looming tall, pale-skinned and morose in his heavy gray trench coat, Peter must look otherworldly amongst them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So it’s not much of a surprise when he feels eyes plastered to him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He assumes it’s Elias, staring as always, but when he turns, Elias is gone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>That can’t be good.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter pivots on his heel and looks around urgently – where did he slink off to?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He squints in the sunlight, trying to pick out the shape of the man, and sees that the building closest to him is labeled Pantheon Café. There’s not many people sitting outside of it, but –</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’ve got to be fucking joking,” says Peter as he strides over to the man seated at the closest table, sinking into the empty seat across from him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mikaele Salesa peers up at him with dark eyes, sipping at something caramel-colored. There’s another drink, foam half-melted and glass glistening with condensation, sitting across from him. Mikaele waves at it with his free hand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Cappuccino freddo,” is all he says. “’All the rage’ here nowadays. This one is on me, actually, this time.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter rests his fingers on the glass, but doesn’t drink it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Best not to make sudden movements,” says Mikaele.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why?” asks Peter slowly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Where is Elias Bouchard?” asks Mikaele in counter. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Smiling. Not a good sign. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Clearly it’s rhetorical, because he presses on. “My guess is he saw the trouble from far away and is hiding like the weasel he is. Does that sound right?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ah. Peter doesn’t realize he’s clamping his teeth around his tongue until he tastes blood. A lot of that, lately.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“These Hunters,” he manages to say. “They’re close?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“A block down the Voudouri, to our north. They are sitting at another café. There is food and drink in front of them, but make no mistake – they are eying bigger game. Like I said, calm is key. Try not to throw chum in the water, so to speak.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Elias’s artifact, then,” says Peter urgently. “Where is it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mikaele gives him a strange look.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t have it,” he says, and Peter can tell he’s not bluffing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>What</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“These fellows, these, ah, Hunters…they have the arrow. Multiple arrows, I would think. Bows, too. Tucked under their coats, in their duffel bags. To the teeth. Has Elias told you </span>
  <em>
    <span>nothing?</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Whatever expression is on Peter’s face pulls a wry laugh from Mikaele. Peter opens his mouth to reply and Mikaele flutters a hand at him. “What </span>
  <em>
    <span>have</span>
  </em>
  <span> you two been wasting time on, then? Elias Bouchard poking around on the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra – </span>
  </em>
  <span>first the man could not reach you, now you cannot get enough of him</span>
  <em>
    <span>. </span>
  </em>
  <span>But surely you know how that must end for you?</span>
  <em>
    <span>”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re picking </span>
  <em>
    <span>now</span>
  </em>
  <span> to do this, Mikaele?” Peter tries for dangerous, but his heart is giving his ribs a swift beating. “He doesn’t tell me anything. Not anything </span>
  <em>
    <span>direct</span>
  </em>
  <span>, anyway.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Disappear, Peter. Disappear, and don’t look back.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, you are…indulging that curiosity of yours, then,” says Mikaele with his knife-thin smile. “Given his devotion to Beholding, I wonder - are there eyes all over?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter considers throwing his trendy foamed drink into Mikaele’s face, but just barely refrains. “He isn’t my </span>
  <em>
    <span>business</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and he damn well isn’t yours.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, it would be him doing all the ogling anyway, right? Has he seen your arse tattoo yet? That is a good gauge for how things have progressed.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter stares at him, and Mikaele laughs.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“My, such a long time since I have seen a blush on that icy white skin. It warms the heart.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I could toss you to those Hunters and make a run for it. Buy myself some time,” mutters Peter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>There they are. Some of them look local. Others not – Englishmen maybe. Dressed like they’ve just caught the ferry, luggage and all. Eyes – hungry. Even from here, he can see that much.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ah. Of course. Well, of course you could. But……well, I haven’t got a counter-argument. How about bigger fish to fry? Speaking of, the fish around here is very good, you know. They cook it whole, eyes and all.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mikaele.” Mikaele’s flurried speech, the way he shifts his weight from foot to foot, his knuckles squeezing white around his drink, it all reeks of </span>
  <em>
    <span>fear.</span>
  </em>
  <span> It’s making Peter nauseous. “I have to think. I’m not equipped for this sort of confrontation.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>One, two, three…half a dozen of them, at least. Everything is still. What are they waiting for?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How long have you been sitting here with them watching you, Mikaele?” asks Peter, voice barely above a whisper.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Almost an hour,” replies Mikaele. His hands are visibly shaking now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter knows they’re converging on the same realization.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’ve made perfect bait,” says Peter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“They have their sights on you,” nods Mikaele. “I move when you move, and…best of luck, Captain.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter counts down under his breath.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The two of them spring up from the table, knocking it out into the street between them, and take off in the same direction, running south along the waterfront.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Hunters hit the ground just as fast. They fan out, well-rehearsed, along the walkway, the nearest of them leaping to avoid the thrown table.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Civilians scatter like seagulls from the fray, and soon the earth trembles with confused cries and pounding feet. Peter knows instinctively that this won’t help him – the Hunters are set on their quarry. He thinks of the Magnus Institute, its waiting room reeking of centuries-old fear, curated so meticulously that any Avatar can feel its pull, and he wonders if the Hunters are drawn to him in much the same way – steeped in Fear as he is. The fact that he is so terrified of being seen, let alone pursued, must be intoxicating to worshippers of the Hunt – somewhere deep down, below his human-most layer, Peter can’t really fault their reasoning.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter cuts a hard left away from the water, sprinting between rows and rows of café tables, Mikaele never too far behind him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s a few terrifying seconds where it seems the tables will never end. There is too much ground ahead, nowhere to hide, hot breath on the back of Peter’s neck only getting hotter, it’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>too much, too close</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and then suddenly he emerges into the busy shopping district.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Without so much as a glance at each other, Peter and Mikaele split off and bolt in different directions. Mikaele weaves expertly through the tight-packed rows of cars, ignoring the confused and angry exclamations of the people he shoves aside. One moment, he is there – the next, he is gone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter runs farther ahead down the center of the street.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>All he needs is enough space between him and his pursuers to get out of sight for an instant, and he can turn the advantage to his favor. He just needs –</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There. A narrow stairwell, sliced into the eggshell yellow façade.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As he hurdles into the stairwell, an arrow arcs toward the spot he’d been half a second before, its wooden body shattering on impact with the asphalt, metal arrowhead rolling past his feet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter waits a moment, then steps away, into the Lonely, and readies himself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The moment a Hunter rounds the corner of the stairwell, bow held out in the open now, Peter leaps back onto the street and clotheslines them, swinging them into the Lonely like casting a fishing net, then continues running deeper into the labyrinth of Chalcis.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He hits an open intersection, two streets branching off along either side of a balconied building. Peter stops, cars swerving to avoid him as he stands there, frozen in indecision, looking first down one street and then the other. An arrow screams past him, severing the side mirror from a car, and Peter throws himself out of the way just in time to avoid being run down. He scrapes his hands along the road, looks at the blood speckling his palms and thinks </span>
  <em>
    <span>chum in the water</span>
  </em>
  <span> before the remaining Hunters bear down on him, coming in from all angles.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not at all what he’d wished for his End, but he’s going to do his best.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter sprints straight at the nearest Hunter, who looks taken aback to be chased in return and starts to turn on her heel, and Peter swallows her up in the fog – as soon as its gray tendrils find her ankles, he is climbing back out. He sticks to the shadows of the street, dodging around a lamppost and bowling over another Hunter, spinning and waltzing him onto the gray sand of the Lonely before he is back out in the acid blue daylight, looking for another target.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then he feels it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something pressing down on him, hot and heavy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He stands anchored in the dead center of the intersection.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This isn’t like the fear that has kept him weaving and dodging through the Hunters, just a half-step ahead, isn’t like the fear that led him long ago like a compass away from Moorland House and into the misty woods, isn’t like the fear that has been his gift and his curse and his everything since his earliest memory, since before memory.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t know – can’t possibly know what this is.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he feels himself turning toward it – toward </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something shifts around him, inside of him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter lets out a soft breath and looks down, and sees the arrow jutting out of his right side, just below his ribcage.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ah.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He touches it with a finger. This arrow isn’t wood and metal – it’s bright gold.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He clamps a hand around the arrow’s shaft, and squeezes. It doesn’t shatter, doesn’t give in the slightest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It burns inside of him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His blood has turned it to gold, and it is poisoning him, it is killing him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The arrow glints royally as Peter turns his body up toward the sun. He looks back farther and farther, craning his neck until it hurts, and the golden earring is the first thing he spots. Leaning over the balcony, those copper eyes bare down on him wide and unblinking. The arrow is nothing, thinks Peter, compared to the agonizing intensity of Elias Bouchard’s gaze, watching him – </span>
  <em>
    <span>Watching</span>
  </em>
  <span> him –threatening to vaporize him on the spot.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He tries to say his name – nothing comes out but a narrow trickle of blood.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The English Hunter, the one who struck Peter, is looking up now, too.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We have an audience!” She laughs in pure delight, and notches another dogwood arrow.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The arrow sails high through the air, toward the balcony. Peter, his mind slowing, everything slowing, doesn’t see where it ends up, doesn’t know what has happened, except that Elias has disappeared.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias has left him to die alone in the street.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Alone,</span>
  </em>
  <span> thinks Peter with a weak smile, as the Hunter rounds on him again. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Alone and out of the –</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As he’s pulling the fog up around him, he feels the impact of the second arrow in his left pectoral, and then everything dissolves away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>…</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The fog of the Lonely is serene. The water is gentle, too gentle even to ebb and flow, and after all there is no tide without a moon.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The sky of the Lonely hangs empty. Even the stars, cruelly winking, cannot find him here.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>There is no sun to paint him red.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The gray throat of the world is waiting for him.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Gray fog pulls itself slowly, agonizingly slowly, into the shape of a man, along that empty shore.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It is easier to be alone.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It is easier to be out of the world.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(But damn it, he is still curious.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It is painful.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It is inevitable.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It is who he is.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Yes.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I am who I am, </span>
  </em>
  <span>thinks Peter Lukas, and as he steps into himself, two bloodstained golden arrows fall from the mists and settle on the sand below him, and he takes a long and shuddering breath like a scream.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter Lukas falls onto his hands and knees and screams into the gray shore of the Lonely, his fingers tearing at his hair, tears erupting from his eyes, a tidal wave of them, dropping hot from his face and sizzling below him. The fog curls away from him, disgusted, but he doesn’t care. He hugs his shoulders, presses his mouth to the sand and sobs into it until his entire body is emptied. He stays there for a while longer, listening to the silence that follows.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>He picks himself up.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he goes to retrieve what is his.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>...</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>It takes Peter a long time to get there, but he knows the way like instinct, an ache deep down inside him that he doesn’t need to understand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He materializes in a nondescript alleyway, blinking away the fog. As soon as he appears, he hears a faint voice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Peter.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s Elias, semi-concealed amidst a cluster of crates. He looks disheveled but mostly intact, one leg hugged loosely up to his torso and the other stretched out on the ground, his head back against the bricks, eyes closed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter approaches him slowly, listening for footsteps besides his own, but the alley is quiet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias rests his leg flat and draws his hands slowly away, and Peter sees the golden arrow embedded shallowly in the meat of his thigh.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You deserve that,” is the first thing Peter says.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hah,” replies Elias humorlessly. As Peter gets closer, he sees that Elias’s eyes are moving rapid-fire behind their lids, as his body remains perfectly still. “Care to lend me a hand anyway, since we’re both here?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Bastard,” says Peter. “You weren’t making any move to help me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We needed to give them a good chase – it wouldn’t have worked otherwise,” Elias winces. “Otherwise they’re only arrows. Though…we only needed one to hit its mark…so I suppose the other two were superfluous.” He taps the shaft of the golden arrow jutting from his leg, then grimaces.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“They don’t break, no matter what you try,” says Peter. “I had to enter the Lonely to drop them out of me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes, that’s the </span>
  <em>
    <span>point</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” replies Elias. “I tried to tell you – on…on the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span>…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You recited me </span>
  <em>
    <span>poetry</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” retorts Peter. “Have you ever considered directness?” He doesn’t need an answer to that, of course. He inhales deeply, holds it for as long as he can, trembling with the pain in his hole-riddled chest, and then releases it through every pore. A thick, cold fog rises around them, and soon the features of the surrounding streets disappear.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What are you doing?” asks Elias.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter turns back to Elias. The man is leaning forward now, eyes wide open – the whites of them shimmer in the haze. It takes Peter a moment to recognize his expression as terror.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The disgust seizes his gut immediately, and he turns his attention back to the network of narrow streets around them, swallowing hard. Pacing back and forth in the alley, he tries to feel through the fog. He thinks he can hear whispers, see dark shapes flitting through the edges of it, but he isn’t sure. He’s in his element. He just needs to </span>
  <em>
    <span>focus</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but –</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He feels something snag his leg – Elias’s arm is thrust out, hand squeezing Peter’s trousers at the back of his ankle. “I can’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>see</span>
  </em>
  <span> through this fog, Peter,” says Elias behind him. His voice is shrill, like it’s coming from someone else. “I can’t think straight, I…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“They can’t see </span>
  <em>
    <span>us</span>
  </em>
  <span> either,” whispers Peter tersely. “I’m trying to get us both out of this, not that you bloody deserve it.” To emphasize that, he shakes Elias off of his leg and continues his pacing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Everything is so small, so close,” Elias says to himself, and Peter can hear his arms scrabbling at every surface now, as if he’s trying to stand. “All of my planning, all of my toils, drained out by a single arrowpoint.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Be quiet,” hisses Peter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Rash, impious man! To stain the bless'd abodes, and drench his arrows in the blood of gods!” says the voice coming from Elias, and his head rolls back against the wall behind him, his eyes pointing skyward.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Peter is somewhere else, sometime else, and a cough is wracking James’s body. It disgusts him. It hurts him.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Elias’s hands are outstretched.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The burning throe of torment is there anew, it darts through my sides – I must wrestle once more with that cruel, devouring plague!</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Elias stares directly at Peter – his face is ashen gray. He’s talking as if he can’t hear himself, can’t hear anything. It all begins to meld –</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He’s slipped into the fog. He’s gone. Why can he still hear James’s voice, crying for him? Will it ever – ?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Be QUIET!” screams Peter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Everything pivots inward. Peter feels it in his blood, like a great ice shelf cracking into the cold sea.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Hunters are moving. Their eagerness burns through the fog. In the empty streets, their footsteps are infinitely loud. Peter feels them more than sees them. But he feels an opening, too, waning fast.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Now. Now – or never.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can you run?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias hugs the top of the crate and lifts himself laboriously to a half-stand, but his legs give out at once.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Without thinking twice, Peter throws an arm under Elias’s thighs and the other across his back and lifts him bridal-style, then takes off through the fog. Elias goes limp against him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Feet fall all around them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Every movement of the fog lances into his aching body, but he doesn’t slow.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Heracles did not choose the poison,” comes Elias’s soft voice from beneath his chin, “but he did build his own pyre. Make no mistake.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mhm,” says Peter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It was from his own arrow, before touching the blood of Nessus. It was his own poison and then his own pyre.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll take your word for it,” groans Peter, skidding to a halt as two figures sprint through the fog just ahead of them, then disappear. “Too many – </span>
  <em>
    <span>damn</span>
  </em>
  <span> it – too many gods, too many battles, and too many arrows.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You have no idea,” says Elias, sounding more tired than any one man has a right to.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They run for a long time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There is no thrilling climax to the chase.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The blood trail is lost in the fog, and eventually it’s…over. Peter’s run breaks apart into a pained half-jog as his adrenaline fades.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are we in the Lonely?” asks Elias quietly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No. I’ve never brought someone into and back out of the Lonely…I think it would kill you. This is just a shroud…enough to get us to safety.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thank you,” says Elias into his throat.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Shut up,” replies Peter. “Thank me by shutting up.”  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter strains to remember the paths Elias had him trace on the town’s map. As fog-laden as the streets are, he makes turns based on intuition, and silently hopes for the best.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then, suddenly, they are back at the hotel.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As soon as they’re in Peter’s room, he allows the fog to dissipate, and all his energy drains with it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He drops Elias haphazardly at the entrance to the bathroom, then shoves past him and runs the water in the bathtub. Prying off his shirt, he inspects the wounds on his pectoral and ribcage – they’re still bleeding, but only at a slow trickle. He splashes them, gritting his teeth around any sounds of pain, and gets to business cleaning out the wounds and then bandaging them with the first aid kid from the medicine cabinet. All the while, Elias stays slumped with his back against the door frame watching Peter, both hands resting gingerly around the arrow jutting from his thigh. His body is smeared with Peter’s blood.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Going through the motions of tending to his wounds has given Peter’s anger and resolve time to re-sharpen. His hands are shaking as he pulls his bloodied shirt and coat back on. He drops his utility knife and the first aid kit on the floor beside Elias with a loud clatter as he limps out of the bathroom past him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This doesn’t mean I forgive you,” he says over his shoulder. “Not even close.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias, mercifully, doesn’t reply. A few moments later, the bathroom door closes behind Peter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Elias finally emerges, holding an intact but bloodied arrow in his hands, Peter is sitting on the edge of the bed waiting.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You knew,” he says hoarsely to Elias.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias places the arrow carefully in a disposable bag by the door, wincing a little as he leans down, and then straightens to look back at Peter. The uncharacteristic panic has cleared his face, and while he’s a little paler, a little less steady in his movements, there is that infuriating calm back about him now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You </span>
  <em>
    <span>knew</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” repeats Peter. “You </span>
  <em>
    <span>knew</span>
  </em>
  <span> they would come after me first, didn’t you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Elias doesn’t answer right away, Peter leaps to his feet and crosses the room toward him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Always babbling when it’s unwanted, and silent when I need answers,” says Peter, grabbing Elias by the collar and giving him a shake, to see if he’s paying attention. Elias does nothing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, you </span>
  <em>
    <span>knew</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and you watched it like some sort of twisted sport. But you didn’t anticipate yourself getting hit, did you? </span>
  <em>
    <span>That’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> when things start to </span>
  <em>
    <span>get scary.</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Peter,” starts Elias.</span>
</p>
<p><span>“Don’t </span><em><span>Peter</span></em><span> me, Bouchard,” Peter shouts, the force of it sending a jolt of pain through his bandaged chest. “You’ve compelled me, you’ve used</span> <span>me, and now you’ve nearly killed me – for what?! For money? You’ve had our money! For game? To what prize?” Another shake for emphasis. “My misery! You’ve tormented me since the moment James died.” His voice falters around the name, and that only feeds his anger. “I could end it here. I could – I could snap you in half with one hand. I…</span></p>
<p>
  <span>“Stop it, Peter,” says Elias, and somewhere beneath that cool veneer, Peter can see something giving.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Good.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter clenches his fist deeper, snapping Elias’s shirt collar tightly against his pale throat and dragging a satisfying choking noise from him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I could Forsake you,” Peter says. He hears his own voice cracking, a tremble at the edge of it, but he pushes on. “I could drop you into the Lonely, see if you can puzzle and plan your way out of </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Let’s see you </span>
  <em>
    <span>compel</span>
  </em>
  <span> anyone when you are fighting through the fog, losing yourself, when you’re so deep in that cold and empty nothing that you forget all you have seen, all you have been-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Peter,” Elias says again, and his voice is different now: low and layered with threat. “You have gravely misunderstood our situation. Release me, or I’ll have to set it straight.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No more!” cries Peter, pressing in harder. “No more of your meddling, no more of your watching! I’ve had enough of your </span>
  <em>
    <span>goddamn</span>
  </em>
  <span> eyes on me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You have </span>
  <em>
    <span>no idea</span>
  </em>
  <span> what being Watched, </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> Watched, feels like,” chokes Elias, and presses a trembling hand to Peter’s forehead.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It starts with burning.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias’s hand on him </span>
  <em>
    <span>burns.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Reflexively, Peter steps back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And when Peter steps back, </span>
  <em>
    <span>everything splits apart.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Peter watches himself careen back from Elias and hit the far wall of the room with a loud cry of pain.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“You’re Forsaken, Peter,” says Elias’s voice too loud in his ears, and when Peter swivels his head to pinpoint the sound, the room revolves sickeningly around him. “You’re also human, at least the topmost layer of you. You have your vulnerabilities, just like me. Posture all you like, but don’t pretend that I’m pulling all of your strings against your will.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It’s too loud, too much. Peter throws himself to the ground, clutching his head.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“You make your choices, Peter.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>As he hits the floor, the shape of him goes out of focus, and in the edges of him there are other forms moving, all out of sync from one another. Peter realizes in a flash of white hot panic that all of them are him: Peter standing on the bridge of the Tundra with his face in his hands as Isaias’s mournful screams linger, Peter as a child, following a path of graves out of the foggy woods, Peter in the sea cave clawing and fumbling for the bottle sinking beside him, Peter sitting back against the hotel wall and working his trousers open, Peter walking in South Shields with the screaming of pay phones all around him –  endless iterations of him, all moving through each other. It swallows him, the many voices that are all his alone echoing and building, and he tries to stand, falls, grasps at the fog and tries to pull it around him for shelter, for even a moment’s relief, but where is it? It’s too many of him, all layered on top of one another, he’s burning alive under the weight. He tugs desperately at his coat, throwing it off, then drags at his shirt, the frantic motions of his fingers scoring angry red trails along his pale skin.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He hears his name called out to him, and that splits too, a hundred different voices calling him, Knowing him, and the sound of it pushes in tighter and tighter against his burning body.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Peter tries again in vain to pull himself into the Lonely, but the mist burns away as soon as it touches him, there are coals beneath his skin, coals with irises. He blinks and blinks, trying to see through the images rushing past him, to the one who has done this to him.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Stop fighting and calm down, it will pass,” says Elias, closer now, and Peter locks onto the sound of his voice.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“There you are,” he thinks he says.                                                                                             </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He lunges forward.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias exclaims in surprise as Peter slams into him. Their bodies tangle, everything spins around and around, something shatters far-off, and then something catches them – the bed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter presses his forearm over Elias’s eyes, and everything finally settles onto itself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They are just two people in a single room, and Elias is small and unmoving beneath him, except for the rapid fluttering of his chest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Your topmost layer is human, too, isn’t it?” Peter has to force out the words, he is breathing so hard. “Pull me from the fog, press me into a human-shaped mold…and I’m still twice what you are, </span>
  <em>
    <span>little man</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Alright,” pants Elias. His hands are limply holding the tattered remains of Peter’s shirt. He sounds just as exhausted as Peter feels. “Alright, then we-we </span>
  <em>
    <span>understand</span>
  </em>
  <span> each other.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The elbow propping Peter up is shaking. It’s easier to let it give, dropping his forehead against the wrist that is still blindfolding Elias. Elias inhales when he exhales. The air is hot between them, and Peter is so tired.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I went too far,” says Elias.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Shut </span>
  <em>
    <span>up</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Elias,” murmurs Peter, and it’s easier to let their mouths press together than hear another word.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter knows that normally Elias’s hands running up his chest, holding his face, pressing his eyelids, would hurt him. But he’s so over-stimulated that it barely registers. He lifts Elias’s shoulders and leans him against the pillows, their mouths staying connected throughout. He’s imagined tasting cold fog in Elias’s mouth before, pulling it out of him in an act of retribution, but this is different: hot, clumsy, each giving and taking in minute movements, their hands anchored in one another’s hair.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It is disgustingly human.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He isn’t sure how long they spend like that, pushing and pulling at each other’s limbs, but at some point Elias grips his jaw and shakes him, and Peter snaps back up – he had drifted asleep.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Let me up, Peter,” Elias whispers in the dark – </span>
  <em>
    <span>when did it get dark? </span>
  </em>
  <span>– “I’ll leave you alone to rest.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Stay</span>
  </em>
  <span>, thinks Peter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias slips out from under him and picks up the bloodied arrow on his way to the door, then turns around again, opens his mouth to say something. It doesn’t matter. Peter is already fading out again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>…</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>There is no transition from asleep to awake.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter’s eyes open, and he’s already crossing the room.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something crunches under his boots – a lamp they’d shattered earlier, he thinks faintly  – and he locks the door behind him, knocking on the next door over.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias answers immediately, silently.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter pushes him backwards into the room, shuts them back into the darkness, and is pleased by the open shock on Elias’s face when Peter jerks his head up to bring their lips together.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He lifts Elias easily in both hands and tosses him up on the dresser. Elias squints in discomfort when Peter grips his thighs, but his expression sweetens when Peter’s hands move inward. His shirt pushed to halfway down his forearms, Elias links his hands behind Peter’s neck and cocoons him with it, covering his eyes. Peter feels Elias’s teeth crash into his jugular.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He leaves little openings, opportunities of escape between door and dresser and bed, but each time Elias only presses them closer together again. This ebb and flow stretching for so many months between them has left them both so taut, they can’t move fast enough now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At least on this, they do have an understanding.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Elias looks up at him in the darkness, legs crossed around Peter’s waist, he drowns in it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter melds into him, mouthing down the soft pale flesh of Elias’s belly, taking as much of him into his mouth as he can. Elias’s fingers tremble in his hair.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He could disappear. He’s pulled that card plenty of times – intoxicate someone on his presence, crowd them to the edge and then vanish, leaving them painfully alone in his wake. It’d be easy. Given all that’s transpired between them, it’d be earned, even.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He could forsake Elias that way, too. Disappear from his life for good. See what’s coming and from where and act accordingly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he doesn’t. He wraps Elias in an embrace so tight that his chest aches in protest, feels Elias make a strangled noise beneath him, and presses his mouth to his ear.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re mine,” Peter says.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias makes another noise.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter locks their eyes together.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re mine,” he repeats. “Does that make me yours?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s up to you,” replies Elias breathlessly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter locks their mouths together.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t agree – he doesn’t think he much has a choice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>…</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>For some reason, Peter doesn’t expect Elias to sleep.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But as Peter pulls his clothes back on at the foot of his bed, Elias looks very deeply asleep, curled tightly with his face buried into the sheets.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter tiptoes toward the door. His foot jostles the duffel bag on the ground – he grits his teeth and glances back, expecting Elias to have woken from the sound, but the man is unmoving. Peter looks back down at the bag to see a glint of gold and red.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter doesn’t know why exactly he steals the arrow from Elias.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So it won’t hurt Elias again? So Elias won’t use it to hurt anyone else? Bargaining chip? Consolation prize?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>None of those seem right, but he can always think up a good reason later. He drops it in the Lonely with the others.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>…</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>The two of them stay in Chalcis for another week – to nurse their wounds, mostly, but they do both heal astoundingly quickly. They get their money’s worth, spending the days apart in their individual wanderings and the nights together indulging in food and drink on their ocean-view balcony, whenever they’re not indulging in each other.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter doesn’t see anything else of the remaining Hunters. “They’ve had their fill,” says Elias grimly, hand on Peter’s arm as they head toward the mainland.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter does think he sees Mikaele Salesa slip by at the harbor as they’re boarding the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but he can’t be sure.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Interestingly enough, Elias is the one who avoids Peter on the voyage back to England. He looks deep in thought, staring out at nothing, and for once he has nothing to say.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span> lands in England, drizzle and fog hang soberly over the earth. The two of them walk ashore in silence. They stand there together on the edge of the water for a long time, their surroundings fading to gray.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Come to the Institute with me,” says Elias finally. “I’ll give you answers. If you choose to take them.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>No.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” says Peter.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Mikaele Salesa fanclub, member 1 of 1, reporting...</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. You Don’t Ever Let Anything Else Be Taken</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>The Magnus Institute, London, England - 1997</b>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The fear is no different from the last time Peter stepped foot inside the Institute – Peter’s chest fills with it, bittersweet and throbbing. He grips his fists close to his sides, the bite of nails in flesh just enough to ground him, for now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias, meanwhile, steps in through the doors and into his role as officiant, and the color seems to return to him. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Audio, Vigilo, Opperior</span>
  </em>
  <span> says the shimmering green banner above the threshold, and Peter half expects to hear the words chanted out to him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For as unassuming as the Magnus Institute appears at the surface, its interior is seething: a dragon’s hoard of knowledge spilling from hunched oak bookshelves, metal filing cabinets and even a few round-faced little white computers – that’s what Peter thinks those are, anyway.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Researchers, library staff, and students throng the narrow hallways between cases, passing files back and forth and talking in brusque tones. As Elias leads the way through them, they greet him respectfully, not acknowledging the huge, gray man trailing in cort</span>
  <span>è</span>
  <span>ge. They ripple out instinctively to give Peter a wide berth, some rubbing their arms or leaning into one another as if for warmth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The pair comes to a spiraling, pillared staircase that deposits them down onto the basement level. “The Archives,” Elias says, gesturing widely with one hand, and his tone is proud to the point of bursting.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Archives are more modest, the mood considerably more withdrawn. The employees here are a little more wrung out – they do take a moment to look in Peter’s direction, sharp and pointed gazes, and when they part around his path it’s more deliberately done.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias has been speaking through this entire procession, pointing out basic features and facts of his Institute: 1818, Jonah Magnus, Edinburgh, London, Research, Artifact Storage, Archives. The words slide off of Peter – he’s just looking straight ahead, trying to get through, feet light on the fire walk. He lets himself unfocus, fogging in all ways but literal, and follows the feeling of Elias, the ticking of his heels, the heat of his voice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t notice at first when the papered walls and neat shelves become cobbled stone – not hallways, but tunnels.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Where are we going?” he asks, and his voice echoes and builds unsettlingly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Deep,” says Elias, multiplied, “To the heart of it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Their footfalls echo out into the darkness and return to them like whispers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Minutes trickle to hours, or so it feels, and Peter thinks of the tide – ankle-high, waist-high, throat-high, meaningless intervals when you’re mid-drowning.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Elias,” he says aloud, and he’s disgusted at the fear in his own voice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias stops walking abruptly, but he does not turn. “Regretting your choice?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter thinks, listening to his own heart thudding in the dark.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Good,” murmurs Elias, and he keeps walking, Peter not far behind.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You should be honored,” Elias continues after some pause. “I’ve never shown myself to anyone. Some have guessed. None have seen.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Such intimate words, delivered so pragmatic.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, I guess I’m honored, then,” says Peter, trying for lighthearted, but he feels small here, and he doesn’t know why.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you afraid because you think you’re going to die down here?” asks Elias, and now he does glance back at Peter, and Peter meets his gaze, drinks it greedily, thinks deliriously even of reaching out to grasp his hands.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t think so,” replies Peter, locking his hands into his pockets. “I’m not afraid to die.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter thinks he sees a flash of teeth, but he can’t decipher it in the dim light. Elias hums.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why don’t you walk ahead?” Elias asks suddenly. “It’s a straight path forward. I’ll be right behind you. I promise.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The dread in him is building, muscle-deep, deeper. But what can he do? Peter keeps moving forward, inevitably.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“James never planned to bring you here,” Elias says from directly behind him. “He was just indulging, using his time, and there would always be more time, he thought – until there wasn’t. Sickness was not part of his plan, and certainly not death. I want to say that the terror of his impending End changed James fundamentally as a person, that the version of James that became increasingly estranged from his fellows and isolated from the world was wildly different to his heart. But…” Elias has stopped walking now, so Peter stops too. “But that is too convenient. That fear, however buried, however tallied and calculated and archived, </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span> James.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>How do you know?</span>
  </em>
  <span> Peter almost asks. It’s too late for questions like that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You are who you are, only in that you are what you choose. You chose to leave James to his fate, to feed off of his weakness and terror as he fell out of the world.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter lets out a shaky exhale. The tunnels take it in readily.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Didn’t you?” asks Elias, and his voice is shaking, too.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I am what I am,</span>
  </em>
  <span> thinks Peter, but what does that mean?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” he moans, and the tunnels of the Institute moan back at him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But you came back for me, in Chalcis,” says the voice of Elias, at a whisper. “Rash and impious as I am.” Peter thinks he must be standing only a foot behind him now in the stillness.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Unusual for a Lukas</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” says Elias, “is too convenient. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Unusual for a Watcher – t</span>
  </em>
  <span>oo convenient. If it’s selfish to defy the gods by living beneath them…so be it. Let’s keep walking.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter obeys. He thinks he would walk off the edge of the world if Elias asked him to.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They walk deeper.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Deeper, still.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then –</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Up ahead, there is something.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something shifting, something pulling. Like a magnet, the space before him draws his feet quicker, until he’s stumbling over himself, into a great dwelling.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Around him is a massive honeycomb of chambers, some intact and some caved in, all circling an empty floor like a ballroom court. The air is thick with dust – the walls are starched with fear so long-steeped that Peter feels infantile, infinitesimal.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias steps out past Peter into the huge room and then turns toward him, lifting his arms out to each side.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“After all that’s passed between us,” he says, his voice carrying dramatically in the expansive darkness, “I thought I owed you a proper introduction.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then he takes Peter’s hand – scalding, his fingers pressing like a wax seal along the lines of Peter’s palm – and pulls him forward.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The room isn’t empty after all – there, in the dead center of it, is a throne, and when Peter identifies the curvature of a human body within it, the fear finally boils up in full force, and he wrenches his hand free and falls to his knees between the two bodies of Jonah Magnus, the scream torn from his lungs before he can stop it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>My God!</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p><em><span>My God,</span></em><span> the Panopticon screams back at him from all around. Every cell peers inward, vacant orbital sockets – Peter feels them hitting every inch of exposed skin like droplets of hot oil, like sinking bottles, like golden arrows, and then he is up and running as fast as he can and then faster still, out of the heart of </span><em><span>James – Elias – Jonah, whose voice follows him into cool darkness. There is no specific point at which the fog takes him, but rather he submerges gradually into it, the cobblestones becoming</span></em> <em><span>gray sand and gray water and gray sky</span></em></p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span> – and when he can’t run anymore he jogs, and when he can’t jog anymore he walks, and when he can’t walk anymore, he crawls – walks – jogs – runs – crawls – walks – runs – crawls – runs – pulling the amber bottle from his coat and throwing it desperately out into the still water, and when he’s walked farther the bottle’s washed up to the shore beside him, and he throws it out again, crawls forward to find it again in his path, over and over he grasps it and throws it</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>– until he is tired, and he lies on the sand, holding his bottle to his heart and looking out at nothing.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter stays in the Lonely for a long time, longer than he ever has and maybe longer than anyone has – until the cold is bone-deep, until he presses his fingers together and they’re translucent at the tips, and he wonders if he is better off here, where nothing more can be known, ever again, where he is –</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Alone and out of the world,</span>
  </em>
  <span> he thinks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He laughs, a loud and cruel laugh that burns his lungs.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knows better now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“There is nowhere I can be alone,” he says aloud, “with that bastard’s eyes studding the walls of my mind.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And in time he finds his way back to Elias.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>…</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <b>1997 – The End</b>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter Lukas gets grayer and softer around the edges, in every sense of it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No matter how many years pass, Elias always manages to surprise him, and maybe that’s what ferments in him that buoyant geniality. He is always going against himself, always making exceptions. At a certain point, it seems silly to pretend. As a bonus, the cheeriness drives the rest of his family up the wall.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s easier to pretend, it’s easier to avoid it, but why bother? Peter loves Elias, deeply, with all parts of himself: human and not. He can’t know that Elias loves him back, but he deeply thinks he does.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Of course, they never quite get the hang of </span>
  <em>
    <span>liking</span>
  </em>
  <span> each other, but that’s not the </span>
  <em>
    <span>point</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter really does come close to washing his hands of Elias, if not outright killing him, when his meddling archivist derails the carefully-crafted ritual of the Forsaken. But it’s inevitable, isn’t it, that they end up laughing over it at dinner some time later?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The gaps between seeing each other are long and cold, and yes, they are Lonely.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But in time, those thaw out to something a little more bearable.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias Watching him – on the street, in his bed, aboard the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tundra</span>
  </em>
  <span> – is hard, and yes, by nature it burns him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But in time, even that deludes to a comforting warmth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They never call it anything specific. They never marry – would that be out of character? Peter isn’t even sure anymore – but they are each other’s, in all ways that matter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias asks many times over the years to walk through the Lonely with him. Peter often thinks that one day he will actually indulge Elias, though he doesn’t know what will happen then. He thinks that he could leave Elias in there, if he wanted. Not an unattractive notion, either.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter grows grayer and softer. It suits him, he thinks. Elias thinks so, too.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias ages, too, sort of. The topmost layer, at least. Sweet little crow’s feet perch on either side of his copper eyes. He develops laugh-lines (“sneer-lines” Peter calls them, when Elias gives him a sour face, which is often), his gold hair streaks with silver, and over the years, Peter has a harder and harder time of convincing him to leave the Institute for their little getaways.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias spends more time in his Institute, Peter more time on his ship.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The knowledge hangs unspoken between them: that one of them will die first.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They learn to laugh about it. They learn to make wagers and play petty games. They sink many years into these games – trying to get the better of one another. That way they are always thinking of each other. The years pass quickly, that way, even when so many of them are spent so far apart.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Is it fate, that determines which of them is the first to die? Or is it choice?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elias knows which he believes, of course.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peter </span>
  <em>
    <span>chooses</span>
  </em>
  <span> to bite his tongue, clamp down on his secret – </span>
  <em>
    <span>Elias’s secret </span>
  </em>
  <span>– until the Archivist pries him apart in recompense.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then Elias is finally granted his wish of entering the Lonely, and within it he finds he is truly </span>
  <em>
    <span>alone and out of the world.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Now it is Elias’s turn to fall to the shore of the Lonely (</span>
  <em>
    <span>nearby lie three golden arrows, each stained with blood, and a message-in-a-bottle)</span>
  </em>
  <span>, his mouth screaming into the sand, the tears spilling hot from his eyes, until he is emptied of all of it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then he picks himself up.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he goes to retrieve what is his.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>…</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>– The End –</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading!</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A lil three chapter fic I wrote purely to indulge myself. But I hope someone might enjoy it!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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